


Stricken

by Whitnium



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blind Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Serious Injuries, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Survivor Guilt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-04 18:03:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12776463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whitnium/pseuds/Whitnium
Summary: AU. Following a devastating injury, Jack gets the tactical visor while still in command of Overwatch. The circumstances surrounding the injury, however, are driving him down a dark path ... and dragging everyone else with him.From pre-fall to post-fall, and every moment between.Please mind the tags, trigger warnings provided on chapters that require them.





	1. Can’t Let You Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know  
> That I am stricken and can't let you go  
> 

Gabriel's self-appointed position as Jack's bodyguard came about for one simple reason:  Jack always disregarded his own safety in pursuit of a goal, something which more often than not ended with Gabriel pulling the other man back from the brink of something stupid with a lecture of _dammit Jack, you're a super soldier, not a super hero._

Jack would always regard him quite seriously, insisting that yes, he understood the value of his own life.

The lessons never really seemed to stick, however, and eventually Gabriel's constant presence at Jack's back became a sort of unspoken agreement between them, something that went well beyond fidelity.

Years turn to a decade and Gabriel's resolution never falters.  He has spent nearly half his life protecting Jack from the cover of shadows, mercilessly dispatching the chaos that stalked the Strike Commander--or perhaps containing the chaos that the Strike Commander _caused._ Those lines were often blurred where one Jack Morrison was concerned.

Presently, Gabriel relishes the freedom that Blackwatch gives him in regards to his responsibilities. Often, he has eyes on Jack while the latter remains completely unaware, moving in the oblique, a specter in the twilight.

Nothing could prepare Gabriel, however, for the day that he failed in his job spectacularly and it all went to shit.  

Jack is missing for five days until Gabriel finally finds him in the middle of the desert with two horrendous gashes on his face and a ghost in his eyes. He can remember the moment with astounding clarity: Jack looking at him but also through him, his face twisted in abject horror, managing to whisper "G-Gabe, I can't--" before trauma steals his words and he falls unconscious.

* * *

It's been three days and Gabriel can't stand the waiting anymore.

He is sequestered in his office attempting to write a report on the rescue mission that bureaucracy is insisting he complete, but the distaste he has always felt for paperwork is not helping his uneasiness. He is finding it increasingly difficult to remain impartial in describing the events, because how can he possibly remain detached in anything where Jack is concerned?

_Commander Reyes._

The AI nearly makes him jump out of his skin and he curls his lip in a snarl of frustration.

"Yes, Athena?"

_There is an urgent incoming message for you from Doctor Ziegler._

He stands in anticipation and whispers hoarsely: "receive."

"Gabriel?"

It takes a few agonizing breaths for Gabriel to find his voice. "...What is it, Angela?"

"Jack's awake."

* * *

The doctor stops him with a gentle hand before he reaches the door to Jack's room.

"Gabriel, there is something you should know."

He balks at her interference, speaks to her without turning his head. "And what is that?"

Angela is fighting her own inner battle, one between professional detachment and personal sympathy. In the end, her response is somewhere between the two.

"The damage to his eyes was extensive. I am afraid we were unable to save his sight."

Stoic silence for a breath before Gabriel finally turns to her. "He's blind?"

"He has lost over ninety percent of his vision."

"And it's... permanent?"

Angela nods gravely.

"No one else knows yet. I would not broach the subject with him. He was ... unreceptive to my attempts to bring it up."

* * *

Jack looks like hell, though Gabriel doesn't know why he was expecting anything different. Biotic energy has healed the wounds on his face but the scars are deep and not so easily swayed. The worst one is diagonal between his eyes, still deep red, while the other has pulled his lip into a perpetual smirk. He is unshaven and dirty and looks completely spent--but he is alive, and that is all Gabriel cares about.

Jack knows someone is there; his eyes float in Gabriel's direction, but he is determined to keep up a front--or perhaps unwilling to accept his circumstances. "Hey," he says to the shadow in his vision, noncommittally.

"...Jackie."

Jack's expression brightens as if he had known it was Gabriel all along. "Well, look who it is."

_God, Jack, you've always been a terrible liar._

"How are you feeling?"

Jack hesitates for an inordinate amount of time. "I'm alive, I guess."

"You sound so pleased about it."

Jack laughs woodenly and quickly changes the subject: "Angela told me you were worried. 'Beside yourself,' she said."

"You bet your ass I was," Gabriel breathes. "A lot of shit has happened to you, Jackie, but I think this was about the worst."

War is something he can handle: predictable, tactical. His feelings for Jack have been and always will be on the opposite end of that spectrum. The only constant in his love for Jack is its ferocity: absolute, complete, soul-crushing.

"I wish I could ... hell, I wish I could tell you _anything."_ Jack sputters. "Last thing I remember I was in Gibraltar..."

"You have more important things to worry about than that."

Gabriel does not mean the sentence in the way Jack receives it. The air between them becomes suddenly frigid and Gabriel knows instantaneously that Jack _knows_ that he knows and that everything is about to blow up in their faces.

"... Angela told you, didn't she?"

Gabriel hesitates until the silence becomes physically oppressive."Yeah, she did."

Jack leans back in the bed. "Okay, then. I'm waiting."

"... For what?"

"Your agonized tears, or something." He sighs and gestures vaguely in the air with his hands. "I don't know."

Gabriel shrugs. "I'm not going to give you some empty platitude, Jack."

"Not even an 'I'm sorry?' A little bit of sympathy for a man who _isn't going to see a damn thing_ for the rest of his life?"

"Jackie--"

"Actually, I don't _need_ any fucking sympathy," Jack continues bitterly. "Because there sure isn't anyone who can do anything _for_ me," He motions with a hand to his eyes. "You know."

Gabriel chews on his words because they are all fighting to get out of his mouth at once. A knot of something molten grows behind his breastbone, hot and heavy.

Jack's expression is distant. He turns his head away.

"...Just leave, Gabriel."

* * *

Jack requests Gabriel's 'presence' for a 'meeting' a week later at a 'neutral location', as if their interaction is to be nothing more than some sort of jurisprudence. There is a junior officer at the Strike Commander's arm, and Gabriel wonders blithely what the kid could have done to be saddled with the job of being Jack Morrison's guide dog. The junior officer must have powers of clairvoyance, or perhaps just of self-preservation, for he delivers his quarry and vanishes wordlessly down the hall.

"We're alone now," Gabriel says after a pause. "What do you need?"

"I had Athena read me your report."

"Of course you did."

" It was good to ... fill in the blanks."

Jack is obviously uncomfortable, struggling with something, and Gabriel gives him space.

After a moment: "I have stepped down as Strike Commander of Overwatch."

"Okay--"

"Permanently."

Gabriel's eyes narrow dangerously. "Jack--"

Completely undeterred, Jack continues: "I want you as Ana's second-in-command." He shrugs apathetically. "Consider it... my last order as your CO."

Gabriel laughs bitterly and grabs Jack by his arm. He pulls him close. "You are _not_ going to turn this whole damn operation upside down just because you're pissed off, Morrison."

Jack squirms under his touch, though whether from anger or anxiousness Gabriel can't tell. After a moment he manages to extract himself from Gabriel's grip and crosses his arms defensively.

"Look," Gabriel starts. "You have every right to be angry at what happened to you. But don't shoulder this by yourself. Let us _help_ you. Let _me_ help you."

"You _can't_ help." The response is brutally caustic. "You always think that you can fix everything, Gabriel, but you can't fix this." His expression twists into one of accusation and he gestures at his face dismissively. "Nothing. Can. Fix. This."

Gabriel hesitates. "The Jack I know doesn't give up so--"

"The Jack you _knew_ is _dead,_ Gabriel. He died out there in that desert." Jack's expression is dark. "Where the rest of me should have died, too."

* * *

Gabriel doesn't know why he's doing this. Then again, of the hundreds of people in the Overwatch HQ at the moment, there is no one else who _could possibly do this._ Recently the new recruits seem to avoid the Strike Commander as if he is harboring something contagious; of the old guard, Jack seems to tolerate only Gabriel's presence, and barely so.

Gabriel stares blankly at the door to Jack's office.

His instincts tell him this whole situation could go to hell if he doesn't play his cards right. He knocks and almost considers abandoning this fool's errand when Jack's voice makes him about-face.

"Open the door, Athena."

The AI obliges. A gaping void of darkness awaits Gabriel on the other side of the threshold, but it is not the darkness that makes him hesitate. _It's only Jack,_ he thinks, but the thought is so loaded with emotions, the weight of them like heavy chains.

_Fuck it._

He steps inside.

Gabriel's eyes adjust after a moment and he finds Jack sitting on the floor with his back to his desk, elbows resting on his knees.

"...Jack," Gabriel hesitates.

If the Strike Commander reacts to him at all Gabriel can't notice it in the semi-darkness.

"Jack?"

"I'm not deaf, Gabe." .

Gabriel's hackles rise. _It's going to be like this, then._ He feels his fingers tighten on his payload. Finish the job: drop off the shit and get out of there.

"Got something for you."

Jack's eyes meander in Gabriel's direction.  

"Gabriel Reyes, errand boy?" Jack tries to smile but the scar across his lip leaves him grimacing instead.

"Shut up, Jack." He shoves the offending item toward Jack's dangling hands. "Take it."

Jack traces the object with his fingers, his expression slack.

"Cut the bullshit Gabe. What is it?"

"Fresh from development," Gabriel offers. "I've never seen them rush a project that fast. It's called a tactical visor."

"Brilliant, Gabe." Jack drops the visor to the floor at his side, disdainful. "You, uh, you _do_ remember that I lost my sight last month, right?"

Gabriel growls; if Jack isn't holding back, neither will he. "It's going to let you see again, _pendejo._ You really think I would go through all this effort to play some joke on you?"

Jack's mouth forms into a thin line. He draws a deep breath through his nose, releases it slowly to steady himself, a sniper preparing for a kill. Gabriel's seen this before and prepares himself for the inevitable.

"...Sorry, Gabe."

Gabriel's mind would have been more prepared if Jack had actually pulled a gun and fired bullets at him; instead, the apology leaves him reeling, confused. He sits back, his eyes suspicious.

"What?"

Jack scrubs his hands down his face and groans; exhausted, devastated.

The silence that follows is like smoke, something that Gabriel draws in with every breath, something that burns his eyes and lungs and settles like an impossible weight in his chest.

Smothering.

"... I'm sorry for everything," Jack finally says. "Maybe I should--"

Before Gabriel knows what he's doing he is nearly straddling the man, one hand cupped against Jack's face, the space between them nearly nonexistent.

"What--?" Jack's voice is weak from surprise.

"I want you to look at me."

"Very fucking funny, Gabe."

Gabriel drags Jack's hand along with his own to where the tactical visor sits discarded.

Jack rests his forehead against Gabriel's chest for several breaths and says, petulant: "don't make me do this, Gabe."

"Put on the visor, Jack."

"You're ignoring me."

"Damn right I am."

Somehow in their tangle of bodies and through a combination of their efforts the visor finds its way to Jack's face. There is a distant, nearly indecipherable hum as the technology recognizes its purpose;  the space around them is bathed in red light.

Jack's head lolls back and forth disconcertingly and his whole body sways. A chilling pang of alarm grips at Gabriel's heart and the only thing he can think to do is clutch Jack's hand. He can feel the other man's rapid heartbeat through the tightness of their intertwined fingers.

"Think I'm going to puke," Jack mutters.

"Yeah, they told me that might happen."

Jack pushes himself back from Gabriel, allows himself a gentle shake of his head from side to side. He sits in silence a moment, his attention somewhere in the vicinity of the floor, and he fights against the urge to rip the damn thing off because it's so unnatural, a distorted idea of what vision should be. He balks against the idea of having his experiences dictated through artificial means, and again feels the pang of bitterness that has been omnipresent for the past several weeks, of regret for everything that changed in that desert, of everything that he won't get back.

Gabriel can tell from the knit of Jack's brow that the man is struggling inwardly with the weight of it all, but stubbornly refuses to speak of it.

"Jackie?"

Jack's augmented vision alights on Gabriel for the first time.  

"You look like shit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally two separate stories, but I didn't like the direction either of them was taking so I gutted them and stuck them together. Struggled with this one a lot for reasons I can't really explain. I had to fight with it because it wanted to be much, much darker, and we just can't have that, because they loved each other.
> 
> Title and epigraphs are from the song "Stricken" by the band Disturbed.


	2. Leaving Me Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You come alone, letting all of us savor the moment  
> Leaving me broken, another time  
> 

Gabriel can't find Jack yet again, but this time it is merely an annoyance and not cause for alarm _;_ he knows the Strike Commander is _around,_ but the man seems to have assumed the form of wraith, vanishing from sight whenever Gabriel gets close.

Jack's office is empty, the ready room is deserted, and every person he asks responds to the "where is the Strike Commander?" question with wandering eyes and a hasty excuse to retreat in the other direction.

Gabriel finds a comm panel and makes quick use of it: "Athena, locate Strike Commander Morrison."

_The Strike Commander is in training range three._

Not necessarily an unusual place for the man to be--Gabriel should have seen it coming, actually, since Jack's most recent complaint was something along the lines of "if Angela says 'avoid strenuous activity' one more time I'm going to revolt."

Gabriel finds the door to the training range locked and smirks mischievously. A few choice key presses and his personal authorization code is all it takes to send the door sliding open: Jack may outrank him, but Gabriel has his own secrets of which the Strike Commander is only tangentially aware.

Unnatural heat wafts out of the room, gunfire assaults his ears, and the smell of spent munitions is nauseating; whatever Jack is doing, he has obviously been at it for a while.

Jack pauses in his barrage at the targets downrange and holds his rifle it at a carry as he senses Gabriel's approach.

"You sneaky bastard."

Gabriel shrugs, "locks can't keep me out, you know."

"You've come to 'observe my progress', as Angela and Torby like to say?"

"Nah. I... I just haven't seen you in a while is all."

He feels Jack's mood change rapidly and the Strike Commander makes a point to change the subject. "I'm a lucky man today."

 "What do you mean?"

"Oh, Torby accidentally let slip that he made a slight ... uh, 'modification' to the visor at my last evaluation."

"For crying out loud," Gabriel groans. "Don't tell me..."

"Oh, before he even figured out what he had said Angela kicked him out. When I tried to bring it up with her she threatened to sedate me."

"Ha."

"I've been trying to figure it out. Nothing _seems_ different, really."

"No, uh, no unusual sights or sensations anymore?"

"Maybe I'm just used to it." He busies himself with inspecting his rifle and is making a point to avoid looking at Gabriel at all costs, something that has become an uncomfortably _common_ reaction between them over the past few weeks. The events of the injury and its aftermath have left Jack skittish where any sort of intimacy is concerned, and even a mild appeal to his humanity seems to drive him further away.

Jack inclines his head as he continues his investigation and Gabriel notices something on the visor he has not seen before. "You know, Jackie. There's a switch here."

The other man's head tilts in surprise. "Where?"

Gabriel grabs Jack's wrist and directs his hand toward his left temple. Jack investigates the area with his fingers. "Never noticed that before."

"Maybe that's the uh. 'Modification.'"

"Could be." Jack chews his lip in contemplation. "Should we try it?"

"I don't know, knowing Torbjörn..."

"It couldn't possibly make things any _worse,_ Gabe." Jack's fingers trace along his temple and he presses the switch.

There is an audible click _in his fucking brain_ and his vision snaps together with so much clarity that it nearly knocks him over. Time around him seems to slow, as if the visor is allowing him to see faster than the speed of light. It is an absolutely terrifying sensation and he reacts almost out of instinct, raising his rifle to protect against an unseen enemy. Three reticles suddenly spring up around three targets downfield in the range, though he sure as hell didn't _ask_ for that to happen. Anger seizes him and he pulls the trigger in three short bursts; he is not even consciously aiming but the visor has taken over that control center of his brain and performs the action for him. The three targets explode.

The rifle drops from nerveless fingers and Jack stands agape, breathing frantically. The visor clicks again, a vibration he can feel under his skin; the reticles vanish as quickly as they appeared and his vision returns from its state of hyperactivity with a sensation akin to standing up too fast. Disorienting.

Pain erupts behind his eyes like an atomic bomb: blindingly bright and as hot as the sun. He begs his knees to keep him upright but fails miserably and his entire body clatters to the floor while a sound unbecoming of a human throat escapes him. He is scratching at his face, shaking fingers struggling for purchase, spewing expletives as the agony grows exponentially.

At last he hooks his fingers under the visor and pulls it free; he all but throws it in Gabriel's direction, the latter so stunned from the events of the last twenty seconds that he barely reacts as it goes flying past his head.

Jack curls on his side, hands over his eyes. Voice thick with emotion he groans: "Athena shut off the lights." Breathless, to nobody in particular: "the _fucking lights."_

Gabriel's brain does not catch up to his body for several seconds, in which time he is on his knees beside Jack and is attempting to take the latter into his arms. He is met with severe resistance.

"J-Jackie--"

Jack's entire body suddenly stiffens in Gabriel's hands; after a terrifying second he begins to seize. Gabriel is stunned for a heartbeat before every neuron fires at once.

"Athena! Get Ziegler and Lindholm in here _right fucking now!"_

* * *

An extreme cross-examination is underway in the lobby of the medical bay. The tactical visor is displayed on a table between the two men and Torbjörn is staring down Gabriel's accusations with thinly veiled arrogance.

"I didn't mean for anything to happen to him and you know that. I figured with him bein' a super soldier and all--"

"That just means it would have _killed_ a normal person."

"I can adjust it," Torbjörn counters, though the statement has ruffled him outwardly. "Won't be easy but it'll make it tolerable."

"Why did you fucking do it in the first place?"

Torbjörn is midway through a haughty reply when Angela emerges from one of the rooms behind them. Both men turn to her expectantly and Gabriel is on his feet in an instant.

"Sit down, Gabriel," she waves a hand gently in his direction. "He is fine, but I do not want you to see him yet."

"Well, in that case," Gabriel drops his voice low as he leans over the table, gripping at it until his arms shake. It is not often that he shows his anger outwardly to anyone but Jack, but recent events have thinned his normally sturdy emotional walls. "I need an explanation from both of you. Now."

"Medically, or--?"

"Hell, I'll take anything at this point, Angela."

Silence grows and threatens to consume the room before Torbjörn finally gives in. "I'll take responsibility for it, Angela didn't do a thing, 'cept to listen."

"What were you thinking?" Gabriel hisses.

"The tactical visor is a fascinating piece of technology. I figured a little tweak or two wouldn't cause no trouble, especially since I've been adjusting it anyway as he gets used to it."

"A 'little' tweak, Torby?" Gabriel laughs sardonically.

"Aye, a little one. We already designed the tactical visor to have homing abilities, I just modified them slightly, seeing how good he's been taking to using it. I wanted to discuss the features with Jack before this little fiasco but... things happened."

"And Jack was okay with this?"

Torbjörn shrugs. "Well, he didn't exactly _object..."_

"Look, Jack isn't one of your turrets. He's not something you can build up or dismantle or _improve._ He's--"

"I hate to interrupt this little meeting, but did anyone think to include _me?"_

Jack's sudden presence elicits three separate reactions. Angela rushes to his side, her hands reaching for his arm as if to steady him; he tenses and brushes her off, but she remains close to him, watching. Torbjörn is suddenly extremely interested in the tactical visor on the table and steadfastly avoids looking at the Strike Commander. Gabriel stands in anguished silence in a place that is somewhere in between, torn between joining the doctor at Jack's side and pretending that none of this is actually happening, that it's all a ridiculous dream, that he'll wake up and Jack won't be a shadow of his former self and it won't be this damn hard to keep them going.

"Give me the visor."

In response to their hesitation Jack adds: "someone give me the visor before I'm forced to go over there and get it myself."

Gabriel obliges him at last, plucking the accursed object from its place on the table and passing it to Jack's expectant hands. The occupants of the room watch with a mixture of emotions as the visor snaps home: apprehension, regret, anger.

"Jack," Angela approaches him with a doctor's seriousness. "I think you should rest."

He shakes his head dismissively. "I'll be fine."

 It is Gabriel's turn object; he tries to approach Jack but the latter stops him with a raised hand. "What did I say about trying to fix everything, Gabe?"

"Jackie--" he rarely uses the epithet when they are not alone, preferring it for their more intimate moments, but he hopes that Jack will hear his distress, the veiled plea behind the name.

"No, Gabe. I'll take care of it on my own."

* * *

"You must be desperate," the geneticist coos in response to Jack's sudden appearance in her laboratory. "Straight and narrow Strike Commander Morrison, just how far are you willing to go?"

"You know what I want."

A curt nod. "Give me, hmm... two days. That should be enough to come up with something."

"You know I don't trust you as far as I can throw you, Moira."

"Oh, I don't need your trust, Commander." She looks up from her work station long enough to see Jack's visor is focused on her intently before she returns to her work, unperturbed. "I only require your cooperation."

"That doesn't make me feel any better."

"Do you want my help or not?" There is no emotion behind the question, as if she were merely asking him for directions.

"... I'll be back in two days."

"Happy to oblige, Commander."

* * *

Gabriel presses himself around the corner for cover as an entire armory's worth of bullets obliterates the area where he had previously been standing.

"Think we pissed 'em off," McCree drawls as he reloads.

"Got my six, kid?"

A nod. "Aye-aye cap'n."

Gabriel dives from cover and empties his shotgun into the line of hostiles in front of him before rolling behind the remains of a vehicle to reload. Somehow one of them is suddenly beside him, only to pause in mid strike and collapse with a groan and a bullet to the head. Gabriel yells his thanks to McCree somewhere over his shoulder as he peers from around his cover and begins firing again.

There is an explosion incredibly close on his left side, some sort of concussion grenade. The explosion throws him free of his cover and rips all concept of reality from his brain. When his vision stops swirling he realizes that he is horribly exposed and that the hostiles are converging on his position.

He levels his shotgun and unleashes his last round, but only the victim closest to him falls. He can hear McCree yelling somewhere behind him, but it is distant and indistinct. Gabriel grabs his shotgun around the barrel, scalding hot, and prepares to use it as makeshift hammer when bullets spew from behind him in several bursts. The remaining hostiles fall almost as one cohesive unit, dead before they hit the ground. He is stunned into inaction for several seconds before he allows himself to turn, half-dreading what he might find.  

McCree is there at his back, but standing somewhat to the side and looking extremely sheepish, because a very stern Strike Commander is currently engulfing the space between the two Blackwatch members. Jack's rifle is still smoking. He reaches up and flicks at his visor and the red light dims.

It takes a moment for the copious amounts of adrenaline to recede, allowing Gabriel's thoughts to slow. He looks at the bodies behind him and back to Jack several times before he throws up his hands in exasperation, dropping his shotgun to the ground in the process.

"What in the blessed _fuck_ , Jack. What are you _doing_ here? And how are you... why are you... ugh." Gabriel waves at Jack dismissively, unable to put a voice to his frustration. He reaches down for his fallen shotgun and holsters it. "Look, we can't exactly talk about this right now, but holy shit if I don't have a _lot_ of questions for you."

McCree decides that the impending confrontation is somehow worse than having bullets fired at his head and steps away wordlessly, intent on regrouping with the rest of their operation.

"My team has secured the perimeter," Jack says as he watches the young man leave. He turns back to Gabriel: "finish what you came here to do. We can debrief later in the ship."

* * *

"Okay, Jackie, I want answers and I want them _now."_

Gabriel does not even give Jack a chance to breathe before he is upon him, standing very close, seeing nothing but the iridescent slit of red light. Jack remains frustratingly silent. Gabriel has half a mind to rip the visor off _for_ him, and only curtails his rage through years of command experience.

"... I had a feeling your team would need help," is the neutral response.

Gabriel spits as if the words make him sick. "You didn't need to waste your time."

"I was right, though, wasn't I?"

"Fuck off, Jack." Gabriel reigns in his rapid thoughts with a shake of his head. "Never mind. Forget it. What I really want to know is: why were you using that damn visor like that again, and why aren't you screaming and drooling on the fucking floor because of it?"

"There have been. Changes." The pause between the sentences is monumental.

"Changes? What is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"I did what I had to do, Gabe."

"For fuck's sake, just give me a straight answer."

Jack smiles at him, but it is completely humorless, empty. "I found ... someone who could help me."

The implication hits Gabriel with unbelievable force. He suddenly knows the _who_ Jack is referencing and it makes his insides twist. Saying that she could _help_ is frighteningly imprecise.

"Dammit, Jack."

* * *

The Commander does not knock, does not announce his presence, and is suddenly looming over her. His aura is so agitated that she would almost call it frantic.

"Commander Reyes."

"What did you do to him." It is far removed from being a question, the tone so icy as to chill  the very air between them.

She waves off his irritation with one hand. "I'm working."

"I don't give a fuck what you're doing, Moira. I want _answers."_

"There is no need to be so... distressed." In response to Gabriel's vitriolic gaze she adds, barely looking up from her work to acknowledge him: "It was a minor genetic adjustment, really."

"You..." Gabriel drags the word out, his brain suddenly fractured in a way that renders him incapable of speech. He swallows hard to find his voice again. "You _changed_ him?"

"He _wanted_ it, I merely assisted him."

Gabriel is suddenly very close to her, menacing. "A 'minor genetic adjustment'?"

"Very much so. I re-sequenced the way in which his visual cortex processes information, allowing him to ... make better use of the tactical visor's abilities. A tremendous improvement, if you ask me."

He slams his fist into the table with enough force to send half of her delicate instruments crashing down. Her eyes flick up to meet his, irritated. "I would appreciate it very much if you wouldn't make a mess of my research here, Commander."

Gabriel leaves her in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well ain't this grand! Thank you for everyone who supported the first chapter I am tickled that so many people liked it.


	3. Leaving Me Breathless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another hole in the wall of my inner defenses  
> Leaving me breathless

He did not escape; that would be giving him more credit than he deserves. His captors let him go, dropped him here completely defenseless, abandoned him to a death that is proving to be slow and painful. He could be in a desert or on the surface of the moon, it makes no difference; everything _feels_ the same to him, empty and hopeless.

Bitter bile burns his throat as a nagging thought worries into his brain for the hundredth time in an hour:  what the _hell_ is he trying to accomplish, trudging through this place with no sense of direction? He can't even call it survival instinct, because he could be walking straight into danger and not be aware of it.

Jack is ready to give in, he _wants_ to give in more than anything he's ever felt before, because it is more painful to keep going in a place where injuries are more than physical, where the agony in his brain is twice that in his body. 

He lifts his head to the sky and can feel the sun on his face, scalding hot. It revives him somewhat, enough for him to continue his funeral procession: left foot, then right, walking at the tempo of a dirge.

Something makes him stop. His heart constricts, painful and sudden, and he briefly questions his sanity until he hears it again: someone yelling his name, though it seems to be a hundred miles away.

He has been so used to hearing _nothing_ for who knows how long that the presence of human cadence is foreign to his ears, but his body reacts to the sound with the fervor of a drowning man finding water.

It is a voice he is ecstatic and terrified to hear in kind.

Gabe's voice.

His body equates the man's presence with _safety_ and despite Jack's inner protests he collapses face-first. He will sleep here, he decides almost whimsically, where it is warm; and when he wakes up everything will be different, it won't so hurt so much, the giant void that swallowed everything he _used to be_ will no longer exist.

As soon as their bodies touch, however, something instinctual snaps into defense inside him, because Gabriel is radiating anxiety and it is an insidious sensation that steals away all other thought. Jack clutches at him, tries to grasp any part of him, but Gabriel slips like smoke through his fingers. He realizes only too late that consciousness is rapidly taking its leave and everything is so distant and cold.

"G-Gabe, I can't--"

_I can't see you._

* * *

Gabriel is pacing inside the dropship and McCree is watching him with growing sense of apprehension. His boss is usually unflappable and practical, a consummate soldier that plans everything to the letter and--well, and then all _this_ happened, and suddenly it's like Jesse is looking at a stranger.

It probably didn't help, of course, that the doctor slammed the proverbial door on the man's attempts to follow her as soon as they had the Strike Commander on board. The expression on Ziegler's face as she yelled--the first time he's ever heard her raise her voice, actually--was so contradictory to every quality he has come to associate with her that, were the situation any different, he might have found it humorous.

"Boss, you uh. I reckon it would be better if you sat down, or something."

Gabriel stops mid-stride. He debates discipline but decides against it, instead sagging into a seat opposite McCree, eyeing the younger man speculatively.

Jesse can _feel_ the heaviness of the gaze.

"Look, I uh--" McCree decides he is teetering on a very precarious edge that could lead to his untimely demise if he is not careful and adds: "permission to speak freely, _jefe?_ "

Gabriel cocks an eyebrow in surprise. "What is it?"

"Uh. I know I ain't been around this operation long, but..." He mulls over his words and finally sighs, waving his hands desperately. "Look, it's obvious how much he means to you, okay?"

McCree is unable to tell from Gabriel's neutral expression whether the latter agrees with him or is ready to throw him through the fuselage and into the cold abyss of the stratosphere.

 _"...A_ _y_ , _no mames,_ " Gabriel trails off.

His boss only communicates with him in Spanish for two very specific reasons: he is trying ostensibly to hide something from someone, or the man is inwardly incensed in a way that the English language can not properly convey. Considering they are the only two people in this particular area of the dropship, Jesse suspects that Gabriel is downright livid. He shrugs in response and decides that he has stuck his neck out enough already; if he's going to get his ass chewed out for it, he might as well go for broke.

"I'm just sayin', it'll probably be a good idea to think about this with your head first and your heart second, okay?"

* * *

Jack blinks, once, twice, and his brain is struggling to send the proper signals because it takes several sickening seconds for everything to become tangible.

He can feel the blood running down his face, viscous and hot, and pain is beginning to creep in on the vestiges of his senses, but the most disturbing of all his conscious thoughts is the utter _lack_ of feeling in his eyes, as if they suddenly no longer exist. He drags his fingers across his brow and the digits come away slick from the ragged wound across his forehead.

There is an agonizing sound almost foreign to his ears; after a moment he realizes he is screaming, guttural and terrified. The fear is absolute and complete, panic he has never felt before, a sensation of being thrown into a vast expanse of darkness with no hope of purchase.

He _tries_ to latch on to something, _anything_ in the sudden, inescapable void, when the dream shatters and he frantically claws himself to consciousness, choking heavy breaths into lungs that suddenly don't want to work anymore.

"Athena," he can barely manage the whisper. "Get me Commander Reyes."

Gabriel does not respond for several seconds; when he does, his voice is thick  with sleep. "Wha?"

"...Gabe, I need you."

* * *

Gabriel doesn't even bother with any formalities. He enters his own override code and bursts into the room and is briefly thankful that Jack is not wearing the visor, because Gabriel can barely imagine how petrified he must look. If his expression is anything like what he is feeling, his physical appearance alone could constitute a medical emergency.

Jack is sitting on the bed with his legs crossed, shoulders slumped and head hung, staring sightlessly into his upturned palms. Gabriel sits at the edge of the mattress and watches for a moment. Jack's expression is harried, his face twisted into horrified lines, painfully taught.

"What's wrong, Jackie?"

Absolute silence for far too long. Finally, Jack sighs: "I dreamed about it."

"The desert?"

"I suppose. The moment, I guess, when _it_ happened."

"You want to talk about it?"

Again, a hesitant silence. "I--I don't know, Gabe."

"Well, move over." Gabriel nudges at Jack with his elbow and the other man protests weakly before deciding it is not worth the effort. He allows Gabriel to settle into the space beside him with only a gentle huff of breath to indicate his objection.

"I'm going to sit here," Gabriel continues. "That's all we're gonna do, okay? You don't need to say a damn thing to me, but you've been avoiding me for far too long, Jackie, and I'm worried."

The tension percolates, becomes thicker and more cloying with each breath. Jack resists, trembles against the effort of maintaining his physical and emotional distance. At last he sighs and lowers his head to Gabriel's shoulder. The display violates all the detachment Jack has been using as a shield and Gabriel seizes on the opportunity; he will not let go now. His arm encircles Jack's shoulders and the two men sit like statues in the silence.

After a while Jack speaks vaguely: "I begged."

"Hm?"

"I don't know how I know, I just do. I made a bargain with myself out there."

"...To keep going?"

"No." Jack curls into himself as if the pain of what he is about to say is pulling inward with inescapable gravity. "I begged myself to hurry up and die."

* * *

 

Ten weeks, three days after what everyone has come to refer to as "the event", Gabriel's reserves are finally spent and he seeks out help from Ana. Amari has had their backs, literally and figuratively, for the better part of a decade, and his trust in her is implicit. He finds her in her office with Fareeha in close proximity. The young girl regards him with very serious eyes: despite her age--or perhaps because of it--she is more observant than most give her credit for, and the events of the last several months have not been lost on her.

Ana considers her daughter an extension of herself and makes no motion to dismiss Fareeha as he gets close. Gabriel decides he doesn't care.

"I can't say I'm surprised to see you," Ana offers at length.

"Is it _that_ obvious?"

"Gabe, _nothing_ with you and Jack is subtle."

"... Point taken." A pause as Ana dissects him with her eyes. He adds: "I don't know what to do anymore, Ana. It's like Jack isn't the same person and--it scares me."

"He's not different at all, Gabe. He's ..." she thinks of a proper word for some time. "He's lost. You know Jack even better than I do. He's always been fearless, relies too much on his own stupid luck. Well, luck wasn't with him this time and he feels betrayed; he's angry at the circumstances, of course, but I bet you more than anything, he's angry at himself."

"He feels responsible?"

"I don't think Jack has it in him to blame anyone else for something that happened to him, Gabriel. Especially not _you._ "

Ana's statement hits him with all the accuracy becoming of her title as the best sniper in the world.

"He's told me multiple times he--that he wishes whatever happened had killed him," Gabriel replies. "Is this all survivor's guilt?"

"Something like that, I suppose."

"Well, uh. How do I fix it, dammit?"

Anna's smile is deceptively hollow. "I wish I had an easy answer for that. I wish _all_ of this could be easy. Jack needs to _allow_ himself to grieve, he's holding it all inside and it's killing him."

Fareeha chimes in from beside them: "maybe it was a bad idea to give him that visor."

Gabriel gapes at her, nonplussed.

Ana takes the statement in stride. "I don't know if I would go that far _,_ but she has a point. He is using it as an emotional crutch--"

"I saw him crying, once."

"Fareeha?" the two adults speak almost in unison.

"He didn't know I was there. It was outside the ready room. I think he was about to go in there to brief a strike team, but he stood outside the door for a really long time, and I could hear him sobbing."

She seems oblivious to the subtle change in their expressions.

"He took the visor off and couldn't put it back on for a while, like the tears were going to break it, or something. He just held it in his hands and stood there until someone opened the door to the ready room looking for him. He put it back on very fast and he changed back to normal, like nothing happened."

Ana and Gabriel digest her observation for a quiet moment.

"How long ago was this, Fareeha?" her mother finally asks.

"About a month ago. So I think he wants to get better." She furrows her brow in concentration. "He just doesn't want to feel like he's weak."

"... Hell, maybe it's not so hopeless, Ana."

Ana motions for Fareeha to come close and embraces her daughter while she levels her gaze at Gabriel. "What are you planning?"

Gabriel shudders a little, because for the first time in a long time he _doesn't_ have a plan and is operating purely on instinct. "I wish I knew."

"Just be careful, _habibi."_

"Yeah, I'll try."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also included in this update: some minor tweaks to the first two chapters for syntax and continuity.
> 
> "No mames" is a vulgar phrase that means a dozen different things depending on its context. Here, Gabe is using it akin to how you might say an exasperated "what the fuck." In my personal headcanon Jesse is not white and is perfectly fluent in Spanish.


	4. If I'll Heal Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You don't know what your power has done to me  
> I want to know if I'll heal inside  
> 

Jack thumbs between pages on the datapad almost absentmindedly. He doesn't know why he has this particular report open; he has read it so many times that he is intimately aware of every detail, could probably recite it in his sleep.

The report is terse, even by Gabriel's standards; almost suspiciously so, as if he was holding back information. The attachments to the file indicate the UN received and accepted it as it was, without request for clarification. It is as if everyone on the planet wanted to skirt around what happened in that desert, was willing to accept the fact that Jack's blindness was just an unfortunate consequence of being one of the most powerful men in the world. Something he had scheduled into his life, like budget meetings and public appearances.

The section regarding the perpetrator and motive behind his abduction is nearly empty. Gabriel merely annotated the space with _further investigation ongoing, suspect single individual or small organization._

Jack's computer chimes and he turns his attention to it. He had been performing a search of Overwatch's archives, one that was taking an inordinate amount of time, and at last the results had compiled. His query is a simple one: any mission, any agent, or even any prospective recruit to Overwatch with ties to the American southwest.

 _Thirty miles south of Furnace Creek, CA_ , Gabriel's report had indicated as the location of his rescue. _Area abandoned since 2034 following dissolution of National Parks Service. Cursory search indicated no current evidence of habitation._

Jack didn't believe that. There was something hidden there, in that hellish place, something the strike team had been too occupied to notice. A connection that none of them were willing to make, because to them, what happened to him was regrettable, but unavoidable. They had fixed him with this damn visor and it was time to move on.

But he couldn't stop seeing that desert in his dreams, the flash of light and the feeling of heat on his skin before the agony burned at his retinas and he suddenly saw nothing at all. And somewhere around him, a looming presence, a condescending voice telling him that he deserved it.

The first several pages of his search are proving useless and he disregards them with a flick of his fingers. He doesn't know _how_ he knows what he is searching for, it is a sort of instinct, a living thing in head that is pulling at his thoughts before he even has a chance to form them, rewiring his brain against his will.

On the fourth page he stops suddenly and eyes one of the reports there, his entire bearing turning suspicious. It is a name he vaguely recognizes and something unsteady grows in his chest for a reason he can't explain. The sentient thing in his head grips at his neurons and he opens the file, scans the information with a keen eye.

Midway through the text there is a photograph and something inside him freezes and shatters. He is on his feet in an instant, punching information furiously into the datapad as he heads for the door.

* * *

Moira is holding a rabbit on the table as Jack enters her laboratory; the animal is quaking in fear, its eyes darting everywhere, searching for a means of escape. She scruffs it, injects something vaguely fluorescent into its flank, and returns it to a cage as he approaches.

"What can I do for you?"

Jack produces a datapad and holds it before her. "Do you know him?"

Pictured on the screen is a middle-aged man, a face she recognizes after a moment's consideration. "I do."

The Strike Commander waits expectantly. He motions for her to continue as the silence draws longer. "And?"

"We were colleagues once, at a laboratory in Italy."

Jack continues to stare, unsatisfied.

"Very well, if you insist. His name is Aron Haber. Fairly brilliant man. He is a chemist by profession. Obsessed with chemical weapons and explosives. I have not seen or heard anything of him in nigh fifteen years. Is that enough?"

"Do you have any idea where he might be now?"

"We were only acquaintances." She eyes him sidelong. "What is this all about?"

Jack waves the statement away with one hand. "He tried to enlist in Overwatch three times in the last five years."

"A shame you did not take him. There is a serious lack of chemical acumen in this facility."

"He failed the psych evaluation all three times." Jack mentions this almost sarcastically, because he knows for a fact that Moira would not pass the psych evaluation either, but her appointment to Blackwatch had been largely out of his control.

She seems to sense his indignation and inclines her head slightly, lip curved in a smirk. "Hardly a valid reason to deny him, Strike Commander."

"You don't remember anything? Nothing at all at where his research may have been taking him?"

"When I left my appointment there he was in the midst of something secretive. Something that was going to take him to America, I believe, where he could discretely test his weapons of mass destruction."

"Somewhere like the Southwest?"

She shrugs ambiguously. "Your guess is as good as mine. New Mexico and Nevada were used as proving grounds in the past, so it is possible. Why are you so intent on finding this man?"

Jack gathers the datapad and thumbs through several pages. He hesitates for a considerable time, opening is mouth several times but the words die somewhere between his brain in his tongue. He manages, finally: "thank you." 

She does not watch him leave and returns silently to her work. 

* * *

Athena indicates there is an incoming message just as Gabriel reaches the door to Ana's office. He turns back and watches her intently as she answers.  

  
“Captain Amari, is Commander Reyes with you?”

The voice belongs to the facility’s most senior security officer, a man usually hard-pressed to show any emotion. His voice has a frantic edge, however, a tone that both of them can't ignore.

“Yes.”  
  
“Good. Ma’am, we have a situation in Blackwatch’s sector. Requesting you and Commander Reyes ASAP.”  
  
Something rushes like electricity under Gabriel’s skin. “What is going on?”  
  
“It would be best—Agent McCree! Stand down!” The security officer continues, somewhat distracted, “I don't have control of the situation down here and could really use some backup.”  
  
“We'll be right there,  tell McCree his ass is grass when I get there."  
  
“Understood, sir—“  
  
"Wait," Ana commands before the security office has a chance to sign off. “...Why have you not notified the Strike Commander?”

The expression on her face, the suddenly darkened stress lines, indicate that she already knows the answer. It takes a moment for Gabriel to follow her train of thought; when he does, his limbs flush cold.  
  
“Well... he’s part of the problem, ma’am.”

* * *

 

The Commander and the Captain cross the threshold to Blackwatch's hangar to find a scene of chaos, but one oddly in stasis. The ship normally stationed there is missing and the hangar doors are wide open. A detail of security officers have weapons pointed at the space where the shuttle used to be; within that area Jesse McCree has his Peacemaker jammed under the chin of one of their comrades, his back against the wall. The only movement is from Jesse's mouth: he is unleashing a furious string of curses both in Spanish and in English and muttering almost nonsensically.

As Gabriel gets close the lead security officer orders his men to lower their weapons, deferring control of the situation to the Commander.

"McCree put your gun down, and that's an order." Gabriel does not raise his voice, speaks in perfect calm, the complete antithesis to what he is actually feeling. "Let him go, kid, before this gets more out of hand."

Jesse's eyes swivel toward his Commander and the young man seems to fight the feral adrenaline before he pushes his hostage away and jams the Peacekeeper back into its holster. His victim scrambles away behind the protection of his comrades. Jesse folds his arms and stares Gabriel down, his lip curled in a wince. There is a bloody wound on his left arm, just above the elbow.

“Jesse—“  
  
McCree snorts a short breath: “No offense, boss, but your boyfriend is an idiot.”  
  
Gabriel feels suddenly sick; he draws a heavy breath, fights down the insults he wants to sling the kid's way, and just _hopes_ that the comment is lost on the collection of security officers around them.

“Just... tell me what happened.”  
  
“Morrison strolled in here with a fire under his ass. Said he had a mission for us, just me an’ Shimada."  
  
Breathless: “what sort of mission?”  
  
“Couldn't tell ya. He wasn’t exactly in a talkative kind of mood. More in a shooting kind of mood.”

McCree motions behind him with one hand.

There is a still-smoking crater at least six feet in diameter on the wall that Gabriel had somehow not noticed until now. "What the hell did that, McCree?"

"He had that new weapon with him, that gun that development has been working on. You know, the one that shoots them rockets."

"...The pulse rifle?"

Gabriel turns to Ana. Her expression is frustratingly neutral, but she reaches out a hand to grip him just below the shoulder in a show of solidarity before turning her attention to the younger agent.

"Agent McCree, where is Agent Shimada?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say somewhere over the Atlantic ocean right now."

Gabriel's head whips back to his agent: “Genji went with him?”  
  
“Shimada _left_ with him but I sure as hell don't think it was his idea." McCree motions again to the blackened depression at his back: "wanted to get the Strike Commander to stop redecorating, I reckon."

"And why are you wounded?" Ana ventures.

McCree grimaces as if suddenly remembering about his arm. He looks down at it for a moment and returns his attention to the senior officers. "Can thank Morrison for that, too. Guess I should consider myself lucky he didn't turn the visor _on."_

 “...Jack shot you." Gabriel has to speak the words out loud to comprehend them because the situation is making absolutely no sense in his head.

McCree nods. "He wasn't too happy when I told him I didn't want no part of this scheme of his. I _tried_ to reason with him on the ship, but when I mentioned _you,_ he lost his fucking mind and tried to aerate me. That's when Shimada went all white knight and Morrison took off like a bat outta hell."

"What the _fuck_ ," Gabriel exclaims to nobody in particular.

“I’ve got a bad feelin’ in my gut about what Morrison might be up to, boss," McCree continues. "He was keying coordinates to Eastern California when I was uh, forcibly removed from the ship.”  
  
“You’re gonna have to give me more than that, kid.”  
  
“If I had to guess it looked like he was headed to Death Valley.”  
  
Gabriel’s inside freeze.

_Son of a bitch..._

"Gabe, that's where we--"

He cuts Ana off with a raised hand. "Yeah, I know."

Death Valley was where they found Jack, Death Valley was the place where it all went wrong.  
  
“Ana, get a strike team together, I want us in the air _yesterday_.”

* * *

The communications panel screams to life for the twenty-seventh time since they left Switzerland; Genji has been counting. Each time the horrible chime assaults the silence the Strike Commander jams the button to deafen it without hesitation and returns his attention to the pulse rifle slung across his lap, which he is examining in depth.

"Why do you insist on ignoring them?" Genji offers.

His companion does not look up from his ministrations. "What good would it do? I'm not turning back."

"Have you completely lost your mind?"

Jack hammers a full magazine into the rifle with practiced hands,  allowing the ominous mechanical noise to convey what his voice cannot: a dreaded sense of finality.

"Do I need to remind you that I am not here willingly?" Genji raises his head in defiance as the visor settles on him.

"I had the situation under control," Jack growls.

"You have had _nothing_ under control for almost three months."

Genji conveys his words with serious heat, enough that Jack scowls back at him in warning. The comm chimes to life again, the twenty-eighth attempt at a hail, and Jack jabs at the panel, dropping them into silence again.

* * *

The ship alights several hours and twelve ignored hail attempts later. All around them is desert, scalding hot and desolate. Genji watches as the Strike Commander prepares himself to disembark, checking over the ammunition he carries at his waist. He keys in a code at the control panel at his side and the back hatch begins to open.

"Something happened to me in this place," Jack speaks vaguely in Genji's direction. "The strike team that rescued me claimed there was not a soul here in Furnace Creek. I think they just didn't look hard enough. There is a deranged scientist here who is responsible for everything that happened to me, and I am determined to find him."

"Why are you telling me this?" Genji asks. He has made no attempt to rise from his spot, legs tucked under him and arms folded, an odd picture of serenity in contrast to Jack's pervasive restlessness.

"Look, I don't plan on coming out of this whole thing alive."

"... You are looking for validation." A statement from Genji, not a question. "Even if you have to force it from me."

Jack does not hang his head, will not give in to the overwhelming feeling of defeat that is threatening to consume him. "Somebody has to... to tell Reyes"

_Because he sure as hell can't do it himself._

"They already know we are here. You heard their hails. You made enough of a fuss on your way out that half of Switzerland knows what happened. Commander Reyes is probably not even an hour behind us."

Jack's posture stiffens. He looks over at the central console as the comm line shrieks again, shrugs at the noise, and returns his attention to Genji. "I have made my decision."

"Are you that prepared to die? For some useless vigilante justice?"

An equivocal shrug. "I would appreciate your help, but I am prepared to do this without you," Jack adds, shouldering his rifle and turning away.

"I will not be a part of this."

"Then give Reyes my regards." Jack mumbles over his shoulder. "Tell him that I'm... I'm sorry it had to end like this."

Genji watches Jack leave without reply. When the Strike commander vanishes around a ridge he sidles up to the control panel and activates the comm. The line is barely open before he is hailed from the other side.

"Holy _fuck,_ Jack, what are you doing?"

"It's Shimada," he reports to Reyes. "I hope you are close."

"We are an hour out from your position... the hell is going on?"

"Commander Morrison is on a suicide mission."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I didn't want it to be dark but welp, here we are. Also, trying to find a balance between dialogue and narrative has been difficult.


	5. I Am Stricken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I can't let you go  
> Yes I am stricken and can't let you go
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNING FOR SUICIDE**

Jack is pushing the tactical visor to its full abilities as he patrols the abandoned area, pulse rifle at a low carry. He scans around effortlessly, not even needing to turn his head to see in his periphery. The prolonged activation of the visor is causing a dull pain to gnaw behind his eyes but he chooses to ignore it.

A reticle appears in the visor quite suddenly  and a fraction of a second later a bright flash of light splashes at his two-o'clock position. He curses and throws himself prone; the resultant projectile sails over his head and hits the ground behind him.  The explosion produces a booming sound and a plume of heat. Sand rains down on his head. Jack rolls to his knees and shoots from the hip, lathering the immediate area from whence the grenade came. His bullets hit a granite sign, half-sunk in the sand, reading _Furnace Creek Inn, Est. 1927._

In the seconds it takes Jack to reload Aron Haber bursts from behind the sign and scrambles up the staircase behind it, disappearing inside the dilapidated remains of the inn. The Strike Commander follows.

* * *

Genji hails them quite suddenly after half an hour and his voice is eerily calm: "there are explosions and gunfire."

Gabriel is clenching his fists, struggling inwardly to control the urge to hit something as a way to vent his frustration. The events of the past half day feel like a hundred more, a laborious endeavor, one that is weighing heavily on his shoulders. He is fighting to control his rabid thoughts concerning _Jack:_ the anger at Jack's stupidity, the despair over Jack's inner struggle, and the fear that he, Gabriel, could have done something to stop all this. He draws a deep breath to level his voice.

"Go after him, Shimada."

* * *

The moment Jack crosses the threshold a grenade explodes at his feet, throwing him sideways. The impact causes the visor's assisted vision to disengage. He staggers to regain his bearings and shoots a set of helix rockets blindly toward the center of the room. The shot hits a support beam, causing the entire building to tremble. Jack has to dive away from any cover as a portion of the wall behind him starts to crumble, leaving himself exposed.

Haber appears from behind an upturned table to his right and levels the grenade launcher at his target. As his finger graces the trigger a shuriken suddenly slams into his hand. He howls, drawing his bleeding fingers away, and vanishes behind cover again.

Jack does not turn to acknowledge Genji and before he can even say anything the latter offers, languidly: "Reyes' orders."

Haber launches the grenade from behind the table. Genji quickly steps forward and draws his wakizashi to parry it away. The projectile hits the blade and deflects upward for only a fraction before it explodes in the vicinity of Genji's face. His body teeters for a moment as if confused before his legs fold beneath him and he falls.

Something terrible stirs in Jack, the horrific memory he sees in his dreams, and he cannot control the emotions that surface. He empties the rifle in Haber's direction, pausing only to fire helix rockets whenever they reload. The entire area is bathed in munitions and chaos. As the pulse rifle hitches, empty, he runs toward Haber's location while loading another magazine. Where he expects to find a body he sees only emptiness and he growls in frustration.

Against the wall to his left is a door, blown off its hinges and riddled with bullet holes. Behind it is a staircase leading down to semi-darkness.

* * *

They move as a tightly-bound group of four, Gabriel and McCree on point, Ana at the rear, and Angela in the middle. It does not require any sort of tracking skill to follow where the fight has gone; the Strike Commander and the scientist have left a wide swath of destruction in their wake. A distant explosion draws their attention to the sagging remains of a large building and Gabriel motions wordlessly for them to approach it.

Gabriel bursts in first, guns raised, but the room is eerily silent. He takes several steps inside, McCree pressed to his back, and the two nearly trip over Genji as they sweep the room. The young man's wakizashi is loosely clutched in one hand but he is wholly unconscious.

Angela reacts first and kneels beside him. "He's still breathing," she gasps, with more emotion than she intended.

Gabriel releases his breath, one he didn't realize he had been holding. "Get him stabilized and get back to the ship. Ana, watch her back. McCree, with me."

* * *

At the foot of the stairs the area rapidly expands to a small basement laboratory, well-equipped with modern technology. There are five lab benches scattered throughout the room, each overloaded haphazardly with chemicals and equipment. Haber is waiting for him almost defiantly, grenade launcher at his shoulder, but Jack is expecting the attack this time and dives to the left as soon as he clears the final tread. The noise of the grenade detonating in the confines of the stairwell is horrendous and disorienting and Jack teeters for a second before he fires back, long enough for Haber to reload and launch another projectile.  

Jack staggers and raises his hands, clutching the pulse rifle crosswise to protect himself. The grenade strikes the rifle and bounces to the left, detonating as it ricochets. The rifle clatters from Jack's suddenly nerveless hands and he rolls twice from the force of the explosion toward the center of the room. His vision in the visor turns briefly to static and he groans, stupefied.

Haber is suddenly looming over him, loading the last grenade from his belt into the launcher. Jack snaps back to reality to find the gaping barrel pointed inches from his face.  

The man's position facing the stairs allows him to see the situation unfold as Gabriel suddenly appears, skids along the floor toward them, and opens fire. Haber drops to his knees in self-preservation as the shots shriek just over his head and he scrabbles back behind one of the lab benches for cover.

Gabriel is cursing without pause, emptying his second shotgun toward the cowering scientist as he draws closer. Jack regains the pulse rifle in the chaos and unleashes the entirety of his bullets toward Haber again until the hammer knocks back and ejects the empty magazine. He grabs another from his belt and slams it home.

"I should fucking kill you myself, Morrison. Cover me, kid." This last sentence is to McCree, who stands with his gun poised to fire while Gabriel kneels to reload.

Haber's last grenade suddenly sails from behind the lab table; Jesse reaches with his left hand out of instinct as it arcs toward them and manages to grasp it in midair. Time freezes for only a second where a conscious thought attempts to form in his brain, only to flee as if running for its life. Intense heat bursts from beneath his fingers and the device explodes with a force that throws McCree to the ground; he doesn't even have time to cry out before the blast knocks him unconscious. He collapses in a cloud of bloody mist and black smoke.

Gabriel is sent reeling, ammunition scattering from his hands. He howls in frustration, rolls to his knees, and fires both half-loaded shotguns simultaneously in Haber's direction, but the concussion from a blast so close has rendered his aim nearly nonexistent.

Jack leaps over the lab table to where Haber was hiding and curses out loud as he finds the space empty. His attention is drawn to the sound of a door slamming at the back of the laboratory, but Gabriel is suddenly at his back; Jack shies away from him, hostile.

"Get him out of here," he snarls, motioning to McCree. "I don't want him dying because of me."

Gabriel sputters. "You're sure picking a damn good time to have a battle with your conscience, for fuck's sake!"  He turns his back and kneels beside the young agent, but his attention is fighting to be put to use elsewhere. "And what are _you_ going to do?"

"I'm not finished here."

Gabriel holsters his shotguns and gathers McCree in a fireman's carry. He can't ignore the fact that half of the kid's left arm is _fucking gone_ , the pearlescent glint of his humerus plainly visible amid a pulp of destroyed flesh. Jesse is a dead weight against his shoulders.

"Like _hell_ you aren't, Jack," he utters, exasperated, trying to rein in the wild beating of his heart. "You--"

The air around them glows red as Jack activates the visor. He focuses on the table closest to them, heavily laden with chemicals, and fires a barrage of helix rockets. The projectiles cause a small fireball of an explosion, but one that rapidly dissipates. Fumes belch from the destroyed containers, threatening to consume the area. Jack slips away toward the back of the laboratory, using the visor's augmented vision to guide his egress; Gabriel coughs against the horrendous, slimy feeling in his throat and is forced to retreat in the opposite direction and back toward the staircase.

He nearly runs into the point of Genji's katana--it doesn't even occur to him to wonder _why_ the Shimada is suddenly there when ten minutes ago he was unconscious on the floor.

Genji takes one look at McCree and his expression darkens dangerously. "What--"

"Take him." Gabriel motions with his head to the unconscious agent. "He needs Ziegler more than I need you. Regroup with Amari. I'm going after Jack."

Genji barely has time to sheathe his weapon before he is saddled with an armful of unconscious gunslinger courtesy of his commander. He struggles a moment with the unfamiliar weight. "I--"

"Just _do_ it, Shimada," his commander says as he turns.

Gabriel removes his beanie, shoves it over his mouth and nose, and shoulders his way back into the chaos. The fumes are raging and the smell is choking, pervasive. There is a door on the far side of the laboratory that is standing open, half-blown off its hinges courtesy of helix rockets. He runs toward it, struggling to navigate the twisting walkway between the tables in the haze. He dives through the threshold from several feet away as the fumes threaten to overwhelm him and staggers down the hallway behind it; after several steps he falls to his knees, gasping for untainted air.

Gunshots down the hall draw his attention and the hum of the helix rockets follows in short succession. Gabriel drags himself to his feet, draws his shotguns, and checks them both: four shots in one, two in the other. He notes in a rage that his bandolier is empty. Six slugs will somehow have to do.

* * *

Haber ducks behind the table as the helix rockets scream past his head and explode against the wall, throwing debris violently into his face. He throws the useless grenade launcher aside and instead tugs at his shirt front and fiddles frantically at a collection of wires under his arm.

Jack is suddenly upon him. He swings the pulse rifle with one arm, knocking Haber sprawling to his side. His boot finds its way to the man's neck and he presses the entirety of his body weight against Haber's airway.  

"You should have killed me when you had a chance."

Haber struggles, his fingers clawing at the boot, gagging for breath. Jack continues to press until Haber's eyes roll back in his head; he pulls his foot away at the last moment before unconsciousness, watching silently as the other man wheezes back to life beneath him. He levels the pulse rifle toward the scientist.

Haber tears at the front of his coat with shaking hands and manages to rip it open. There are two bands of explosives strapped across his chest. A series of glowing red and green lights indicate they are armed.

"Go ahead." He speaks for the first time, his tone dejected. "You'll only be condemning yourself, too."

The visible portion of Jack's face is devoid of any emotion.

"I'm sorry." He says it to himself, to the people under his command ... and to Gabriel. His resolve tastes bitter in his mouth.

Jack launches a set of helix rockets directly at Haber's chest.

His mind does not have time to contemplate any regret before a scalding ball of light pushes him back with unbelievable force and he suddenly feels nothing at all.

* * *

Gabriel is almost to the door when the entire world collapses around him without warning, throwing him sideways with a force that shoots bolts of pain through his body as he collides with the wall. He slumps down, momentarily stunned, his ears ringing and his vision bright with stars.

Smoke drifts around him in earnest, but awareness returns sluggishly. By the time he is able to form a cohesive thought there are flames gnawing the walls very close to him. He stumbles to his feet and backs away as a piece of the ceiling collapses in front of him within a shower of embers.

_No._

It is the only word able to penetrate the haze in his senses. He repeats it over and over, clinging to it as if were the only thing left in existence.

_No. No. No._

There is only one doorway, only one place Jack could have gone, and the room is belching flames like the proverbial entrance to Hell. Gabriel takes a step toward the doorway but the heat pushes him back. He can see enough to know that the room is nearly destroyed and the fire is fully involved.

The thought his brain seeks cannot form, his mind rejecting it because it can't possibly be true. It is a sick and twisted illusion, nothing but another nightmare that will pass as soon as he opens his eyes.

The flames lick at his face and draw him back to reality and he backs away further, his entire body suddenly frigid despite the fire around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry, Jesse. :c
> 
> Also: I complain about writing a chapter with too much dialogue and then write a chapter with hardly any dialogue. Shrug. True story, the "final confrontation" was actually much different at first, I scrapped a lot of it because it felt too contrived and completely changed my approach. What I have above seems... better?
> 
> I am officially engrossed in writing this thing now, so you're stuck with me for a while haha.


	6. Into the Abyss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we know  
> That I am crippled by all that you've done  
> Into the abyss will I run
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **ABSOLUTE HUGE GINORMOUS TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR SUICIDE, SUICIDAL IDEATION, AND THE EFFECTS OF SUICIDE ON THOSE LEFT BEHIND, THANK YOU, PROCEED WITH CAUTION**

The fire spreads to the entirety of the laboratory and the surrounding building, driving Gabriel further away and taking his hope with it. He stands outside the smoldering ruins of the inn, his entire frame sagging against the weight of what he can't believe.

Ana approaches him but does not say anything; her expression speaks enough. Gabriel notices her presence after a moment and turns his eyes to her but stands wordless, because there are no words--in _any_ language--that can hope to convey his thoughts. It is almost an _absence_ of feeling, something completely overwhelming in its emptiness, an endless void that is somehow as constricting as a coffin. The dejection is plain on his face and Ana places a hand on his shoulder, completely silent.

His whole world is burning. There is nothing left.

They were soulmates, a part of each other, so close they almost _became_ one another--and then the event happened, and Jack came back from it hurting and it was so damn _painful_ to see him that way. Jack had shied Gabriel away, withdrew into himself, fought his demons alone in a realm where he had no power ... and Gabriel had crashed and burned, failed spectacularly in trying to reach him. He had sat in silence for too long, struggling to think of things to say; he had waited one day too many, convinced that it would all be different _tomorrow._ Ana's words ring hollow in his mind: _Jack needs to allow himself to grieve._ But Jack was so lost, mentally disoriented, and suddenly so uncertain of the purpose of his own existence that his suffering somehow seemed insurmountable compared to ending it all.

If only he had been there outside the ready room when Fareeha saw Jack. If only he could have said something, made a mental or physical connection beyond his previous failed attempts. Anything that could have prevented _this._

"... We need to go, Gabe." Ana seems reluctant to say it, as if the words would galvanize him to some horrific action.

He shakes his head, solemn. "No. Take the Overwatch ship. I'm ... "

How does he finish it? _I'm going to look for Jack? I'm going to dig through these smoking ruins until I find his body so I have something to cry over?_

"I'll come back in the Blackwatch shuttle after--after I'm done here."

"Gabriel--"

He flinches slightly, as her tone suggests worry she cannot conceal. He waves a hand in a failed attempt to be dismissive. "Go, Ana. McCree needs help and Angela can't fix him here."

The appeal to her senses works, but barely. She squeezes his shoulder tightly. "Don't hold this in."

His hand finds her own and he traces along her knuckles in a brief show of tenderness before he pries at her fingers and removes them, one by one.

* * *

Of all the people in the world, it is Fareeha who seeks him out first after his return. He had made his landing as unobtrusive as possible with the hope that he could retire somewhere--his office, a training room, _anywhere--_ where he could not be found. But Fareeha knew somehow that he was coming. She watches him in silence, standing still, a mirror reflection of her mother several days before and Gabriel can barely meet her eyes as he disembarks.

She rushes up to him quite suddenly, wraps her arms around his waist, and squeezes tight. There are no tears, but her entire body is wound up tight like a spring with some unnamed energy. He tries to pull away after a moment only for her to redouble her efforts to keep him close. He can feel her breaths against his side as she buries her head there.

"Look, Fa--"

"I'm sorry," she cuts him off, voice muffled against his clothes. "I'm so sorry Gabi. I should have said something earlier about what I saw. I ... I could have helped."

Gabriel sighs heavily. He wants to have empathy, but everything about him is so hollow, so useless. He hangs his head and speaks low: "don't blame yourself."

Because if anyone is to blame, it's not _her._

His absolute silence after the platitude is enough to force her retreat after a few minutes, though she does so hesitantly, watching him as she leaves. When she exits the hangar at last Gabriel averts his eyes, trying to collect thoughts that filter like water through his hands.

The entire building seems different, knowing that Jack won't be back, like it has lost something that is irreplaceable. He wonders bitterly if everyone else knows, _what they know,_ if they are shouldering the responsibility as much as he is now.

* * *

Ana handles the report on the events in Death Valley and Gabriel is immeasurably thankful, because it is almost beyond him to form coherent thoughts of late, to focus on anything that isn't the explosion that took everything from him in an instant.

She describes the situation to the UN as a _cascade of tactical failures_ and that is where Gabriel stops reading. Whatever she wrote afterwards seemed to satisfy them however, because nobody comes to him requesting more information. Nobody comes to him for much of anything, not anymore. It is an isolation to which he does not object.

The world cries, the world fucking _mourns._ Gabriel sees it in the news: collections of people with nothing shared between them but their grief over a man that was larger than life. A potent reminder of their own mortality. He regards the tearful interviews with strangers and the candlelight vigils with extreme distaste, like the entire planet is trying to appropriate a misery that does not belong to them. Something that should belong to him alone.  

By the end of the month the UN has ordered a statue and he laughs bitterly when he hears about it. He happens to catch sight of the plans for it only because the media won't stop talking about the damn thing. It depicts Jack as a superlative soldier, standing tall and saluting, a rifle balanced against his leg. It is a depiction of Jack that seems wholly obscene to Gabriel because that is not the Jack that haunts his dreams. That is not the broken man, the lost soul searching only for revenge, solely focused on a death of his own making. 

Overwatch goes on without its Strike Commander, though the transition is not easy. Ana handles the burden with unbelievable dignity and strength. He begins to see less and less of her as she shoulders the increasingly difficult duties of leading an organization in a state of chaos, and he withdraws further away into the shadowy confines of his work with Blackwatch because he doesn't know how else to _cope._

Blackwatch has changed irrevocably, but in a subtle way: a difference he can only see if he is not really looking for it. The effects of the catastrophic mission are not only physical. Shimada's already standoffish personality turns downright aloof, his interactions with Gabriel reduced to nothing more than one-word answers and askance glances. He spends more time than ever in the medical bay, though whether it is for Angela or Jesse, Gabriel can't say.

And McCree ... Gabriel only saw him once, when he was still unconscious, and that was nearly two weeks ago. Angela has kept him abreast of the kid's recovery, but he can't bring himself to face him awake, not when the sharp pang of responsibility still burns hard behind his breastbone.

Angela's description of McCree's mental state is uncharacteristically vague: _he has accepted it._

But Gabriel is a fixer, almost compulsively so, and as soon as Jesse is released from Angela's care his commander is meeting with the development team with plans for a cybernetic arm.

_You can't fix this, Gabe._

The words are a force he can feel and he chokes on the bitterness and the shame. He turns his head to the sky and screams inwardly,  _I'm sorry_ , though the apology does nothing to dispel to molten emotions in his head.

* * *

Consciousness returns to him slowly, reluctantly. At last, coherence: _I can't see._ Not particularly troubling, considering what now passed for normal in his life, but rather _irritating,_  since the visor was meant to circumvent this unfortunate circumstance.

He makes a movement with every intention of bringing his hands to his face but cries out desperately and lets his arms fall, because even such a simple motion lights his body on fire with white-hot agony. He can feel the tears, sticky in his eyes, and has to suck in several breaths to suppress the nausea.

_Everything is not supposed to hurt like this._

After an inordinate amount of time he tries again, slower this time. His arm feels leaden and dead but he manages to reach for the visor with a herculean effort. Tracing it in his fingers, he can feel a dozen fine cracks in the surface.

He blinks as if that would solve the problem, but his vision remains frustratingly dark.

_Well, shit._

He can think of only one other option, and flicks at the switch at his temple. There is an audible crack and something jolts through him like static shock. The visor's light struggles into existence, but clings to life like a dying thing. Any attempt at hyper-augmented vision is unsuccessful, but he can see a watery representation of the area around him, though everything is fractured and under-saturated.

The ceiling is black and formless. He turns his head to the side and nudges at remains of something hanging in his way. A massive chunk of the debris falls away and reveals the charred remains of a human foot very close to him. Adrenaline erases all his hurts. He is on his knees in a moment, churning up dust and ashes, struggling to focus.

The foot is attached to a leg but not much else. The midsection and torso have been completely obliterated and only a skull and half a shoulder remain of the rest of the corpse. His thoughts move sluggishly: he knows why this body is here but the memory seems to decide independently that it is unimportant for him to remember the reason, and it remains patiently seated somewhere in the back of his mind. He shakes his head as if to dislodge it.

At last, the thought materializes and brings with it complete and utter panic.

_Aron Haber. The pulse rifle. The explosives._

Another thought, this one anxious.

_Why am I alive?_

He looks down at himself in disbelief. His skin is blackened with ash and taught with burns that are already turning red and unpleasant, but he seems relatively unharmed despite the pain collecting in every inch of his body.

The explosion had thrown him back with enough force to knock him through the damn wall and the debris of what resembles a shelving unit had fallen over the breach--trapping him in a cavern behind it--and that had had somehow been enough to save him from the destruction that consumed the rest of the room.

Somehow.

He doesn't know whether to be relieved or angry and settles on both.

Getting to his feet is a challenge he only conquers after several failed attempts. He extracts himself from his impromptu shelter and steps over the body with as much care as he can manage. A few steps away the glimmer of metal catches his eye and he kicks at it, revealing the pulse rifle. His heart slams to his throat and he sinks to his knees beside it, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. He takes it into his shaking hands.

Remembering is almost as painful as waking up and he trembles as the intrusive thoughts flood his brain:  Genji, and McCree, and _Gabe._ Haber taunting him. Launching those helix rockets with all the conviction of a man with nothing left to lose ...

The taste in his mouth is vile and he turns his head to vomit into the ashes around him and gasps as his throat burns from the indignity of it all and his bones knock together under his skin. The pulse rifle is suddenly too heavy in his hands, the pain in his head a potent reminder of every single failure.

He remains a statue in the middle of the destruction for so long that he loses himself to the void in his thoughts and becomes an empty shell of a human being without feeling,  without motivation, without a _soul._

At last something happens, a synaptic connection he did not authorize, and he returns to himself with a start. His knees scream in protest as he rises, clutching the pulse rifle like a crutch. He shoulders his way through debris and ankle-deep detritus and staggers his way through the collapsed doorway and into the hallway.

It is odd, retracing this route he had traversed so frantically. There is almost a reverence about it, as if he is progressing to a different plane of existence, leaving something of himself behind. His footsteps are the only noise and the air is heavy with a pressure he can feel in his head.

Escaping the building is like drawing an agonal breath: sudden, gasping. He stumbles from the darkness and into the light.

The sun bears down on him in a way that is familiar. The heat on his skin makes the burns reverberate with energy. He wanders without thinking, his legs moving on instinct. It is not surprising to find that Gabriel and his wanton rescue party are gone, and the ship with them. He is likely a dead man to them, a casualty. He turns his back to the landing site and regards the open desert before him.

The last time he walked through this desert he was blind and hopeless. He had been lost, and Gabriel had found him. A part of him had wanted to believe then that it would all be better, that his proximity to the man he loved could erase his doubts about his ability to function in a world suddenly so different. But he couldn’t handle it, the uncontrollable anger, the emotions that gnawed at him and drove him to dark places. Dark places that consumed his hopes, his desire, his survival instincts until every day became a struggle to think, to even breathe.

He had wanted to die. But here he was, alive despite his best efforts, some sick twist of fate. The revelation stirs the anger and revenge deep in his chest. Aron Haber had died … he had _murdered_ him, with nothing to show for it but more anger, more hatred, more shame. His questions unanswered, his need for justice unfulfilled.

 Now his body physically aches for something, for the need to fill this void in his head and his heart, this emptiness he can not quantify.

The desert looms out before him, unreceptive to his inner struggles, barren.

Without a ship it will take him weeks to reach Grand Mesa. But he feels as if he is a man living on time that is no longer his own, something that affords him all the hours in the world. He slings the pulse rifle over one shoulder, sets his feet northeast, and puts the corpse of Furnace Creek behind him in search of Colorado.

* * *

Gabriel returns from a mission with Genji in tow to find Ana waiting for him in the hangar. No request to come to her office, as has been her want of late. She dismisses Shimada with more authority than Gabriel has ever seen her use and pulls the Blackwatch Commander aside, as far from any other ears as possible.

"Gabriel, someone broke into Watchpoint: Grand Mesa last night."

If she expects a surprised response from Gabriel she gets none; he merely regards her evenly. "What does it matter to me? Overwatch isn't my priority."

Not anymore, now that everything that made Overwatch significant was gone.

 _"One_ person." She mulls over her words, chooses them carefully. "A man wearing a visor and carrying an experimental rifle."  

She has to move quickly to practically catch Gabriel as the latter stumbles, the statement tearing the very foundation out from under his existence. He grips at her arm frantically and can't control his haggard breathing.

"W--What the _fuck,_ Ana?"

"I don't know Gabriel, I don't know. Grand Mesa is requesting an investigation and I thought--"

"I'll go. Don't you dare send anyone else."

A placid glare. "Nobody else knows but us."

The question hangs unasked between them, growing ponderous. At last Gabriel finds something resembling a cohesive thought from the chaotic din in his head.

"Ana, what if--?"

_It can't be. Jack was dead, blown to a thousand pieces and burned to ashes. This was some sick fucking joke._

"I don't know, Gabe. He tried to break into their weapons cache and the agents there were able to subdue him. They're keeping him in the brig and, well, their head of security looked like she had seen a _ghost_ when I talked to her. I think..." She trails off, hope and dread waging war on her face. "I don't know who else it could be, even though I can't believe it."

"I _looked_ for him, Ana. I dug through that rubble until my hands bled."

"I know," she replies distractedly, because she is struggling to process exactly _how_ to feel. "Just--go to him, Gabe, if it really _is_ him. Get to him and bring him back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personal experience is a powerful tool. I tried to do the situation justice. Personally, this may be my favorite piece I've ever written. It stirs something in me.


	7. The Reason I Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You carry on like a holy man pushing redemption  
> I don't want to mention the reason I know

Athena's chime causes Ana to flinch, dragging her attention away from the budget reports she had been perusing. She pinches at the bridge of her nose, at the dull ache there. "Receive."

The panel in front of her springs to life with a video message. It is Agent Green, the senior-most security lead at Watchpoint: Grand Mesa. The woman is as pale as a sheet and Ana can practically feel the nervous stress in the air through the pixels in the screen.

"Agent Green?"

"Ma'am, Commander Amari, we have a situation here."

Ana inclines her head. "Details?"

"At approximately 0400 there was unauthorized access to our weapons storage. Well, not entirely _unauthorized_ as... _unexpected."_

The cryptic message does nothing for Ana's budding annoyance. "Once more without the riddle, Agent."

Green hesitates with her mouth in a grimace, as if she is about to say something particularly unpleasant. "Someone used ... Strike Commander Morrison's authorization code for access."

Ana freezes, narrows her eyes. "Explain."

"I'm afraid I have no other explanation, Commander. The room is impervious without the proper credentials, and our logs indicate quite clearly that it was his code." She takes several deep breaths and continues: "there is more, ma'am, but I think it would be best if I showed you the security video."

Green's face vanishes and a video feed takes its place: the foyer outside the vault that holds all of Grand Mesa's experimental weapons. The feed is still for a moment before a figure appears and Ana gasps out loud as every molecule in her body suddenly rearranges itself in a violent spasm. The uniform is ragged, the body moving with a pained hitch, but she can't ignore the looming presence of what can only be the pulse rifle, held at the man's shoulder. As the figure turns toward the security panel and shows his silhouette, the light glints off the glassy mechanism over his eyes and she can detect the faint red glow she long ago came to recognize as the tactical visor's augmented vision.

The man's fingers trace over the control panel and the door slides open at the same moment that a dozen bodies flood into the frame with weapons at the ready. The intruder presses himself against the wall, rifle raised. There is no sound, but she can see his lips moving and can read them easily: _I won't._

After this brief exchange of words one of the security officers fires a shot, but the projectile is a non-lethal one. The intruder seizes in the throes of electric shock from the long-range taser shot and sags back. He raises a hand in defense, attempts to speak, but the same security officer unloads another round and this one sends the man to his knees. The pulse rifle clatters uselessly to the ground and the faint red light from the visor blinks once and fades completely. The intruder hangs his head in resignation and offers no further resistance as two other officers pounce upon him with restraints.

The feed ends and Agent Green reappears, her expression neutral. She waits a moment for Ana to make a comment and finding none forthcoming she voices, with trepidation, what they are both thinking.

"Ma'am, there isn't a member of Overwatch who isn't aware of what happened last month."

The reply is stuck in Ana's throat, as if saying the words would cause something terrible to happen.

Noticing the Commander's distress Green continues: "He is refusing to identify himself, but ..."

"What have you done with him, Agent?"

"We are holding him in the brig pending your orders, ma'am. I thought it best to contact you given the, er, unusual circumstances."

"Thank you for that."

"Someone from HQ should come investigate this. The situation is a lot bigger than what we're prepared to deal with, ma'am. With all due respect, we deal with weapons, not ghosts."

"As you were," Ana says, but it is half-hearted. She cannot bring herself to fully reprimand the agent, given the fact that all logical thought is trying its best to elude her. 

"Apologies, Commander."

Ana hates herself for asking it: "did he hurt anyone?"

Green shakes her head negatively. "No, ma'am. I'm not quite sure how he avoided detection through half the Watchpoint, but he didn't encounter a soul until our cameras found him. He didn't seem keen on putting up a fight before we tasered him. I should note: his rifle was empty, likely the reason for the B&E. We have prototypes like it here, he was probably after more ammo."

"Thank you, Agent Green. I will ... send someone ASAP."

"Roger."

Ana cuts the feed and stares at the space the light used to occupy for several seconds before she buries her face in her hands with a sigh. She doesn't know _what_ to think, how to put words to the swirling, incongruous mess in her brain.

"Athena, locate Commander Reyes," she mumbles through her fingers.

_Commander Reyes is off base._

The comment jogs her memory; Gabriel has been gone for four days. Ana straightens from her hunched position and turns her attention to her computer. She drags her fingers across the holoscreen and through several files before she finds his flight plan: a mission in South America, estimated to last seventy-two hours.

"Athena, status of the Blackwatch shuttle?"

The AI rattles off a list of coordinates that suggest the ship is currently over the Atlantic Ocean and heading toward Portugal. She takes it as an incredible stroke of luck. Ana decides not to make an attempt to hail the vessel; she would rather broach this subject with Gabriel _alone._

Her calculations tell her she has about four hours to prepare for _what_ she is going to say, how she is going to explain to Gabriel that the man they thought dead--maybe? probably?-- is currently in their custody and very much _alive._

She hopes that time will be enough. 

* * *

Agent Green is waiting with a small contingent of her fellow officers as the Blackwatch shuttle lands. She takes one look at the insignia on the side of the vessel and tenses. Gabriel approaches her with a purpose and she barely has time to salute him before he speaks.

"Take me to him."

The brig is on the lowest level and the journey there seems impossibly long. Green is explaining something to him as they walk but Gabriel is only half-listening. He is vaguely aware of muttering something in response. In a normal situation he would be cursing himself for being so dissociated, but the current circumstances are so far removed from normal that he can barely register the admonishment in his head.

Two security guards allow them access to the brig and Gabriel's heart is beating impossibly fast, sickeningly so.

"Leave," he motions to the guards and to Agent Green herself. "I want us to be alone."

"Sir?"

"Get out," he adds, with force.

There is a furtive exchange of glances, some unspoken words between the three, and the pair of guards and Agent Green finally depart. Gabriel waits for the door to slide shut and then _runs,_ churns up the space between himself and his target like a starving predator. The brig has four cells, two on each side, and Jack-Not-Jack is in the second one to his left. It takes three tries for Gabriel to access the correct menus to open the door because of his shaking hands.

At last the bars slide back, but Gabriel suddenly hesitates. His brain has finally caught up to the screaming from his heart and it has decided the idea that  _Jack is alive_ is impossible, rending Gabriel's body obsolete in protest.

Jack-not-Jack does not seem to notice Gabriel's presence despite the horrendous amount of noise. He is sitting with his back to the door, his entire body stiff as if in concentration.

Gabriel's gaze falls first on the tactical visor-- _that damned visor--_ sitting on the concrete slab opposite of Jack-not-Jack. Its surface is a spider web of cracks and it seems Jack-not-Jack has abandoned it completely. He then looks at Jack-Not-Jack, completely takes him in. The man is an unshaven mess, caked in dirt and who knows what else. The gauntness to his face and the dark lines of his expression indicate he hasn't eaten or slept properly in a long time. His uniform is no longer blue but dun-colored, and the majority of the coat is gone. His face and his hands are reddened and peeling, something a few degrees past a bad sunburn.

But his is _here,_ not _gone,_ and the contradiction is tearing Gabriel in twain.

The effort required for Gabriel to finally force his limbs to move is monumental, but the resultant action is fierce; he is beside Jack-not-Jack in two great strides and falls to one knee to be more level with him. His close proximity finally stirs something in the captive.

"What do you want?"

Gabriel's blood freezes. It is Jack's voice. This man has Jack's face. His scars. His impossibly blue eyes.

The name sticks on his tongue and Gabriel fights with it before finally, breathlessly: "Jackie."

The effect on Jack-not-Jack is instantaneous. He writhes away from Gabriel like the other man is something poisonous and pushes himself against the wall. He averts his eyes out of reflex.

"Jackie," Gabriel repeats for simple fact that he can't believe he is saying it. "I--"

Jack-not-Jack lets the tension ease from his stance fractionally before finally sighing heavily and releasing it all at once. "Yeah. It's me." After a heartbeat he adds, with bated breath: "Gabe."

Gabriel is not sure how it happens, but it hits him fast: unimaginable sorrow and unbelievable relief existing in some twisted equilibrium, and suddenly he's crying, _weeping,_ his entire body convulsing with the effort of it. The tears are hot and the sobs are ugly and he doesn't give a damn.

"Gabe..."

"Holy. Fucking. Shit." He manages the response with a hitch of breath between each word.

Jack moves like a ghost and is suddenly in front of Gabriel, searching the man's body with his hands. Gabriel can only stare, taking in every inch of the man who is moving, breathing, _living_ in front of him in mute shock. Jack's hands find Gabriel's face and ghost along his cheeks and he wipes the tears away with his fingers. The touch makes Gabriel shiver because it's so _real_.

He snatches one of Jack's hands with his own and pulls it to his chest and simply holds it, relishing the feeling of the man's fingers against his wildly beating heart.

"How," Gabriel offers after a while, searching Jack's face for answers. "I looked for you. I searched that damn place for a day and a half, Jackie. I found Haber ... but I never found you."

Jack is immaculately still: "I don't know how I'm alive."

"Oh dammit," Gabriel gasps it, but it is in exhaustion, not frustration. "It doesn't matter."

Jack's heart is suddenly _aching_ for his partner, a connection he has for so long been denying himself. Through the darkest points of his existence Gabriel is and always will be _his,_ and the thought gives him comfort, even if that  comfort pales in comparison to the perpetual aura of his terror. He leans his head against Gabriel's shoulder and simply lets the man's presence exist beside him as something that is refreshingly unobtrusive, given the constant malevolent company of his anxiety.

They sit together in silence and it is almost like time has turned back to the days before Overwatch, before the war, to when where they were recruits in an experimental government program and all they had in the havoc and the torture was each other, and that was enough.

How the mighty fall.

Fall in love.

Fall in line.

Fall from grace.

"Come back with me, Jackie."

Gabriel laughs and hitches a smile as he watches Jack's visage change in response to the statement; he has become so conditioned to having Jack's eyes hidden behind the visor that he has nearly forgotten how expressive the other man can be. The eyes have lost none of their depth. Gabriel sees himself reflected in them and almost loses any sense of self-control.

Jack can sense the subtle change. "What's so funny?"

"... You're beautiful, that's all."

"Oh thanks, Gabe, you're hilarious."

A seed of hope dares to grows in Gabriel's chest from the deadpan response.

"Shut up, Jackie, and listen to me. I'm not kidding. Come back with me, to Switzerland."

This time it is Jack's turn to laugh. He pushes himself away from Gabriel and folds his arms, incredulous. "I can only assume here, but I'm pretty sure you didn't tell the world I was taking an extended leave of absence, or something."

Gabriel almost suffocates from the weight of the truth and its implications for their future together.

"To the world, I'm a dead man." In response to the tension Jack can feel radiating in waves off of Gabriel's body he adds: "look, I'm not _mad._ You did what... what anyone would do. But I can't exactly go reappearing at Overwatch HQ like nothing happened."

"What would you say," Gabriel replies, "if I told you I didn't care?"

 "I wouldn't be the least bit surprised." 

"Then who gives a fuck? Besides, the visor is broken, isn't it?"

Jack winces, steeples his fingers and rests his chin upon them. "Yeah."

"Torby can fix it." Gabriel takes another glance at the shattered surface and amends: "maybe."

"Very funny."

"Look, anyone with half a brain here in Grand Mesa already _knows_ who you are even though you didn't tell them _._ Do you really think these scrubs are going to keep a secret?"

Jack shrugs.

"I'm sorry, Gabe. I just ... I can't be Jack Morrison anymore. I just can't. What would happen if the UN found out about this? I won't put Overwatch's reputation on the line like that. Could you imagine the headlines? _Fabled Strike Commander Back From the Dead?_ It would be fucking PR nightmare."

"Fine," Gabriel snaps, harder than intended. "I'll give you a pseudonym, I'll take you over there in disguise, I'll hide you in a _fucking_ closet if I have to. I don't care. The point is, you're coming back with me, whether you like it or not."

A groan: "I think this is an absolutely terrible idea."

"You should feel right at home doing it, then."

"Jack Morrison is dead."

The sentence is cryptically dark, and Gabriel can't fight the suddenly hostile feeling that snakes into his chest. "Jackie?"

"I'll go through with your stupid idea, but as soon as the visor gets fixed I'm leaving. I'm too much of a liability otherwise."

"And where are you going to go? What are you going to do? Overwatch is all you _know,_ Jackie."

_I am all you know._

"That's not a problem, since I'm not Jack anymore." A pregnant pause. "I'll think of something. Maybe I'll retire early, go back to the country, farm corn in my spare time."

"...God, I'm so fucking happy to have you back."

Jack smiles for him, and it is all he can do to hide the _pain._

Because it is all a facade, a gigantic lie.

Gabriel can never know that he has been concocting his revenge since the minute he left Death Valley, planning his vigilantism.  Jack is too broken, so far gone that not even all the positive feeling thrust into in his heart can overpower the sentient, visceral rage hiding there. He is using Gabriel as a means to an end and he fucking _hates_ it with every fiber of his being because he _loves the man so damn much,_ but the demon inside him, the vile, spiteful thing, is forcing his hand in ways he never thought possible, and he is too weak to resist it.

Not even for Gabriel.

Not even for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more, with feeling!
> 
> FINALLY some actual R76 lol.


	8. Bleed This Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You'll never know how your face has haunted me  
> My very soul has to bleed this time

Ana does not give him a chance to disembark; Gabriel can hear her keying in an override code on the outside panel to the hatch before he even reaches it. She swoops into the ship, forces the hatch shut again, and turns to face him. In response to her inquisitive glare Gabriel motions over his shoulder, saying nothing. Jack is sprawled across the bank of seats on one side of the cabin, one arm draped over his eyes, fast asleep.

Ana allows herself to stare for a moment and Gabriel can see the full gamut of emotions play across her face. She shakes her head to dismiss them. Pulling Gabriel close, she speaks directly to his ear, voice barely above a whisper: “when I said ‘bring him back’, I meant it... metaphorically.”

Gabriel flinches away from her, regards her skeptically. “Look,” he says, equally hushed. “Give me a break, I’m kinda flying by the seat of my pants here. There isn't exactly a protocol somewhere for what to do when a man you thought was dead comes back to life and tries burglarize you."

"Has he said anything to you?"

"I tried to get something out of him,  _anything,_  but he passed out before we cleared the mainland. I don't know how he... got out of Death Valley, and hell, I don't even know how he got to Grand Mesa."

"...I walked."

The pair fling themselves apart in surprise. Jack is scrubbing the fatigue from his eyes with one hand and pushing himself to a sitting position with the other. "Not many people to hitch a ride from in that part of the country."

Seeing Jack awake, hearing his voice seems to spur something in Ana, some restraint she has been fighting too long to conceal.

“Oh, Jack.” She is beside him in an instant and Jack turns toward her presence.

“Hi,” he offers apathetically as he massages a crick in his neck. "Sorry I let everything go to shit. I hope you understand."

Ana regards him flatly, suddenly unsure whether to be grateful or offended. "I spoke to Agent Green while you were airborne. She promised to keep this situation private but Jack... what the  _hell_  were you thinking? I--I--" She searches for the words with her hands before letting them fall, defeated. "And how--?"

"Well, you see," Jack cuts her off, tone abrasive."I didn't exactly plan on having anything to  _do_  after Death Valley. Funny thing about being dead, you don't have to worry about anything anymore. But here I am, like the damn prodigal son or something."

Ana concedes with a shake of her head. "Ok, Jack. But  _we_ need to decide," she motions to the three of them, "what we are going to do with... with you."

Jack smirks and allows himself to laugh. "For what it's worth, I thought this was a stupid idea."

"Hey," Gabriel interjects in his own defense. "I'm the leader of the most powerful covert ops division in the world, give me a little bit more credit? I mean--I can keep O'Deorain a secret from the UN's prying eyes,  _you_  won't be any different, Jackie."

"Okay, Secret Agent Reyes. Enlighten me."

"For the visor... leave that to me. As for you--ha, ha--you're going to be locked in my quarters."

Jack's face falls. "You're kidding me."

"Nobody ever bothers me there, not even Ana. It's the safest place in all of the Swiss HQ," Gabriel adds, almost triumphantly.

 "This... this is so juvenile."

 "Maybe. But  _you,"_  Gabriel jabs at Jack's arm accusingly. "You have left me no choice."

* * *

 

For the first two days in the Soldier Enhancement Program they are nothing but numbers to one another, a protective layer of impassivity the government is forcing on them in an attempt--as the doctors so succinctly put it--to 'avoid fraternization.' There is no reason, their superiors say, to be on a first-name basis with anyone when the person next to you might be dead the next day from whatever the hell these drugs were doing.

For forty-eight hours they maintain that distance, until somehow--unspoken between them--they realize that they may be the only two sane people in this entire operation.  So they say  _fuck it_  to the arbitrary regulations and learn each other's names in the hushed silence of their shared quarters.

They become  _Gabriel_  and  _Jack_  to one another, and soon, much more than that. Their curiosity about one another is never quite satisfied in those early days; they fall hard and fast, becoming a part of each other in the span of months.

"You have any nicknames, Gabe?"

Jack asks it of him seemingly at random. The two of them are occupying space on the bathroom floor, partially tangled together, Gabriel leaning against the wall and Jack pressed against him. The drugs are not so difficult to endure, not anymore, but the SEP program guarantees what the two of them have come to call 'shit days' at least once a week, often ending in situations like this: joint misery in some compromising position.

Gabriel lifts his head from the wall with a great effort, regards Jack groggily. "Huh?" is the depth of his response before his head lolls back to the comfort of the plaster again.

Jack laughs at him gently. "Come on, you call me  _everything._ There must be something."

There is a pause of several seconds before Gabriel sighs and pushes back from the wall again. He nudges at Jack vaguely with his hands and the two of them rearrange with considerable effort until they are sitting across from one another, heads hanging incredibly close.

"Yeah, sure," Gabriel offers at length. "I was 'Reaper' in my battalion. XO called me that once, and it stuck. Lived with it for years."

"Why 'Reaper', though?"

"Guess I was always the one there to... do the dirty work. Clean up when others couldn't finish the job. Can't say I was too fond of it, but you know how it goes."

"'Reaper', huh?" Jack mulls over the sound of it, eyeing Gabriel intently. His tone is dripping with sarcasm: "nah, I don't think it fits. Too dark for a perpetual ray of sunshine like you."

Gabriel groans for reasons not entirely related to the splitting headache behind his eyes. "You're terrible."

"I will say, though," Jack retorts as he knocks Gabriel's shoulder with a fist. "Feels like we've spent a hundred years in this place and you're still what gets me out of bed in the morning."

The simple pressure on his shoulder nearly sends Gabriel reeling and he steadies himself with one hand on the wall. He levels his eyes at Jack, attempting to appear serious, but his mischievous intent twists his expression into a shit-eating grin.

"I'm what gets you into bed at night, t--ack!" the last word is unexpectedly cut off as Jack's fist finds Gabriel's shoulder again, this time with decidedly more force. Gabriel sinks back against the wall and massages at the area dramatically, scowling in a false show of pain, but his act elicits no sympathy from the man sitting beside him.

"Why you gotta be like that, Soldier--uh," Gabriel's face twists in response to the fleeting memory. "What number did they give you again? 79? 73?"

"76. I'm injured that you don't remember," Jack replies, deadpan.

"Damn, there were that many of us at the start, huh?" The air around them turns suddenly heavy and Gabriel's expression darkens. "How many are left now?"

Jack matches his partner's grim posture. "There's us. A few more, right? I don't know. I try not to think about it when there's always one less person at roll call in the AM, y'know?" A despondent laugh. "It would probably be a lot different for us if we didn't have each other, wouldn't it?"

"Well, there's a long list of other ways I could be spending my nights, not that competing for room on the bathroom floor as I barf my guts out isn't enjoyable or anything," Gabriel says derisively. 

"Admit it, you  _like_ me."

Gabriel sags his head into his hands, mildly annoyed that Jack seems recovered while he still feels like a dead thing reanimated. "Some days I wonder  _why_ ," he mutters, but his tone lacks any conviction.

* * *

 

They haven't shared a bed together in a long,  _long_  time.

At first it was merely scheduling that drove them apart, two men pulled in every direction except toward each other. Eventually the separation became an insidious thing, something that they both refused to acknowledge, something that grew unabated. Weeks without physical contact--something once unbearable--soon became tolerable, an unfortunate but inevitable side effect of their positions.

And then the event happened, and Jack returned to him withdrawn, his focus on an internal  struggle, a hopeless victim of invisible demons that Gabriel could not help him fight. And Gabriel realized only too late that denying himself any sort of intimacy with Jack for so long had nearly destroyed him, had nearly destroyed them both.

The lights are down in Gabriel's quarters and it is well past midnight, but neither of them are sleeping. Jack is curled against him, breathing evenly, but Gabriel can tell from the stiffness in the other man's shoulders that Jack is far from relaxed. Gabriel can almost see the anxiety, like an ethereal being pressed between them, rendering the positivity of such close contact almost obsolete.

Gabriel listens to Jack breathe and he  _thinks._  He has to fight to keep the insecurities from weeding their way into every thought. Every event of the past month blurs together into a miasma of uncertainty. He drapes one arm around Jack's waist subconsciously; to his surprise the other man does not shy away. Gabriel buries his head in the curve of Jack's neck and they remain in a stasis for what could be an eternity, their heartbeats the only movement in the stillness.

"You remember the day we first met, Gabe?"

The words are jarringly loud in Gabriel's subconscious and he flinches in reflex. "What are you on about, Jackie?"

"They called us by numbers, remember? We were nothing more than unnamed soldiers to them. It still sticks with me, knowing how I stopped being who I was, even back then."

"Jack--"

"For the first few days I don't think we even knew each other's names, did we? You were '24' and I was '76.' They didn't even care enough to want to record our names when we inevitably died. We sure showed them, huh?"

It is impossible for Gabriel to discern Jack's expression with the latter curled away from him. Gabriel watches the other man's back with an unusual mixed sensation in his limbs, heavy and confusing.

"What does that matter now, Jackie?"

"Maybe we did die back then, Gabe. Not physically. Just--maybe more than our bodies changed, you know? Fucked with our brains. Maybe this was all destined to happen from the minute I agreed to the program and signed my life away."

Gabriel removes his hand and sits up, suddenly on edge. "The  _hell_  is that supposed to mean?"

Jack rolls onto his back, arms behind his head. "Forget it." A sigh, and Jack closes his eyes against the memories in his head. "Just what happens when you allow yourself to think too much."

* * *

 

"It's done," Gabriel says to Jack on an afternoon nearly two weeks later. 

Jack looks up from his position on the bed and toward the presence he feels approaching. He holds out one hand expectantly and is surprised as Gabriel sits beside him, grabs his other hand, and deposits a cumbersome object into both of his upturned palms.

"The hell?"

"Seems like they were working on a newer prototype version of the visor before... before you left. Winston decided that a 'weapons engineer' did not have the, uh, 'finesse', so he supervised this one himself. I didn't tell him  _why_ , I just told him to finish it. He seemed all too happy to oblige." To himself he adds:  _probably thinking he's obliging the ravings of a lunatic._

"Yeah, and why is it ... different?"

"He added some aesthetic modifications, I don't know. You know how he gets."

"Uh, Gabe, the last time someone modified my visor it damn near tore my brain apart, remember?"

Gabriel sighs, not relishing the memory. "I looked at the plans myself. Not that I can make out half of what that crazy ape does, but it doesn't look any different from the last one. Some modifications to the internal mechanisms--something about faster processing times, Winston tells me--oh, and it's made out of something stronger this time. Doesn't mean I'd take any more explosions to the face, but..." he lets the words hang.

Jack waves off the statement with one hand. "Okay, fine. Help me with this thing."

Gabriel assists Jack with the metallic balaclava, snapping it tight against his shoulders and neck. The visor finds its place and Jack becomes the figure Gabriel has come to recognize: hard set of the jaw, furrowed brow, the thin red line where his eyes should be. Jack grabs the final piece, a metallic face plate, and brings it over his mouth and nose. It latches into place with a gentle click.

"Nice addition." The voice is artificially graveled and so unlike Jack that something inside Gabriel reacts viscerally.

"Jackie..."

 "What?"

 "I don't like this."

 "Can't say I do either, but what can you do?"

 Jack finds the familiar switch, takes a breath to steady himself, and presses it. The light that bursts from the visor is stronger than before, a red, holographic projection before his face. The room becomes blindingly bright in its detail. He can see only one reticle, belonging to Gabriel, very close. After a moment Jack disengages the mechanism and his normal augmented vision returns. His shoulders slump after a moment; hands find their way to his forehead, massaging there.

Gabriel reaches for him. "Jackie? Are you--?"

"I'm fine," he groans roughly. In response to Gabriel's thoroughly unconvinced gaze Jack continues: "I used the visor's heightened abilities for... for weeks when it was broken. It's just a little headache, don't worry about it."

* * *

 

The person entering her lab cannot possibly be the Commander because the footsteps are too deliberate, not the hurried pace the leader of Blackwatch always takes in her presence. She waits for a moment for the person to announce their presence before turning to face them.

"I would rather not be interrupted right--oh." Moira stops suddenly, taking in the sight of Jack Morrison standing across from her with a visible jolt of surprise.  _"Oh."_

"I need you to promise me that you won't speak about this to anyone."

"Well," she replies with a snort of breath. "It's not every day that I can say I'm propositioned by a dead man." She is beside him in one step, running a nail down one arm as if checking that he is not some sort of illusion. "How did you do it? I must know."

"Moira. Your discretion?"

A sly smile. "Of course. Was it the Soldier Enhancements, I wonder?" She is pondering more to herself than to him as she moves back to the lab table and takes a moment to jot down something on a datapad there. "From what I can gather there was complete and total destruction and yet here you are without a scra--"

"Enough." Jack cuts her off suddenly. "I want to know more about that organization you worked with--with Haber."

Moira's demeanor changes. She frowns. "I don't believe I care to share that information with you."

"If you're worried about top-secret clearance, remember who I am." Jack catches himself: "who I  _was."_

"I don't care who you are, were, or are going to be. That is information I don't want to share. I told you everything I knew about Haber before you went off and  _allegedly_  got yourself killed, was that not enough?"

"The man wasn't exactly in a talking mood when I got there. Left my questions unanswered."

"Poor execution of your plan does not mean I should jeopardize myself for your benefit." She jabs several lines of something more into the datapad before abandoning it and turning to him, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. "And if you do not drop the subject, I will make your presence known to all of Blackwatch, which is probably the last thing you want, isn't it?"

Jack gives no outward indication of his irritation, though it is difficult to tell anything with the new visor obscuring nearly all of his face. He turns to leave and is partway to the door when a memory surfaces and he turns to her.

"...Italy."

Moira responds to the statement with silence, but the change in her expression, however gentle, is enough to confirm Jack's suspicions.

"Go," she threatens again. She watches the door for several moments after he leaves and scoffs after him in contempt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You bet yer ass I did Soldier 24 and Soldier 76 and I have absolutely no regrets. :3
> 
> So it's my personal headcannon that Jack and Gabe were marines.


	9. When The Heart is Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the heart is cold there's no hope  
> And we know

Moira is short with him when he enters her laboratory and Gabriel does not have a chance to explain himself before she grabs him by the arm and directs him toward a chair.

"Sit."

He does as he is ordered and Moira stares him down; he can feel her penetrating gaze without looking at her. "Yeah?"

"You're late."

"Sorry," he offers, flatly.

"By three _days."_

"... I've been busy, Moira."

"Busying yourself with the affairs of a dead man." She cuts Gabriel off with a sternly raised finger. "Repairing lung tissue isn't easy, you know. You will be lucky if this little stunt hasn't jeopardized your entire recovery."

"It's been over two months and I ain't dead yet."

Gabriel had kept this affliction entirely to himself for as long as possible, tried to convince himself that the breathlessness and the pain were some temporary byproduct of the emotions that were wrecking him from the inside. He sought Moira as a last resort when his brain finally admitted that the unbearable tightness in his chest was not only from his grief.

Moira's diagnosis had been succinct: he had his Soldier Enhancements to thank for surviving what should have killed a normal person. Chemical burns on his lungs, over seventy percent destruction of the tissues there. He had breathed that tainted air in the desert almost without pause for what seemed like an eternity, searching the rubble and disturbing the caustic dust without regard; his own safety had been so far from his mind.

Moira searches furiously through a collection of vials. "I can't get reliable data if you are not _consistent."_

"Am I just an experiment to you?"

She has been injecting him every week with some vile concoction she assures him is genetically modifying the way his body repairs its cells, forcing his body to fix what should be irreversible damage. He feels a little less like death with each session, for which he will give her credit, but he can't shake a nagging uneasiness about her treatment, how she regards him like a rabbit with the ability to talk.

"If you wanted cloying bedside manner you should have gone to Ziegler."

Gabriel's reply is faint, distracted: "Angela couldn't fix this."

"No, probably not." Moira returns to his side with a series of vials and an impressive syringe. "Biotic energy can't repair cells like I can. Three days in a chemical wasteland isn't something you fix with medicine, Reyes. Honestly, I don't know how you were still breathing after a stunt like that."

"I didn't have a _choice,_ you know."

"It was a fool's errand. The Strike Commander was lost to the explosion with no evidence to the contrary. You said it yourself."

Gabriel laughs, an action that surprises her enough to draw a raise of her eyebrows.

 _If only you knew,_ he thinks to himself. To her: "I wouldn't expect you to have any empathy."

She shrugs, unperturbed. "Arm."

He pushes up a sleeve to accommodate her demand.

"What were your symptoms last week?" She is nonchalant as she inserts the syringe with a practiced hand.

Gabriel flexes his arm because the damn injections burn like hell and she tics her tongue in disapproval as she reaches for another vial.

"Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Well you might experience more side effects this time due to your ... tardiness."

"Duly noted, boss," Gabriel offers sarcastically. He rubs at the injection site to disperse an unusual tingling sensation there.

Moira produces a stethoscope and is suddenly looming behind him. "Breathe deeply."

He complies.

Her lips form a thin line. "Surprisingly normal, given the circumstances. If this week's injections hold, perhaps only a month's more before I'm satisfied."

Gabriel waves his hands in irritation and cranes his head to look at her. "Oh, before _you're_ satisfied?"

"I did save your life, Commander Reyes, please be a little more grateful." She is immersed now in a holoscreen displaying data from his last exam and is adding data to it meticulously. "You may leave," she adds perfunctorily, not bothering to look up from her work.

"Gee, thanks, Doc."

"Come to me if you have any unusual symptoms so that I may add them to my report."

Gabriel tries not to laugh but fails. If his outburst effects her in any way it does not show outright. He stands up perhaps a bit too quickly, for the room twists disconcertingly and he grips at the arm of the chair to steady himself. Moira does not take notice.

"Hey, doc?"

She does not pause in her typing. "Yes?"

"Tell me something. Could... could you have fixed Jack? His eyes, I mean."

She drops her hands and turns to him, her expression cold and serious. "Commander, given the right amount of experimentation, science can fix _anything._ "

* * *

Gabriel's body is awake before his brain is up to the task. He becomes aware very slowly that he is grasping at empty air beside him. The sheets are turned down and the warmth from Jack's body is still lingering there, ghost-like. Gabriel sits up drunkenly; for some reason he feels disoriented, unsteady.

"Jack?" he says it to the ether, the sound barely registering even to his own ears. "Athena, lights," he demands after a moment, and he squints his eyes against the sudden illumination. The room is empty, as he knew it would be. The past few weeks of closeness have given him a sense for Jack's presence of an almost preternatural sort, and that feeling is dull now.

"Athena, locate--" he stops because he realizes that Jack doesn't _exist_ to Athena anymore. He pauses a second to think. "Athena, security report."

The AI indicates that a security alert has been raised in the sector Gabriel realizes as the outside courtyard. He cuts off any further information with a curse and is only halfway through shrugging on his clothes as he stumbles through the door.

Gabriel enters the building's main foyer at a run and is not surprised to find a collection of security officers gathering in preparation for an assault. _Dammit Jack,_ he snarls to himself, _it's Grand Mesa all over again._ Gabriel calls out to the detail as he closes the space between them and the loudness of his voice in the empty room catches them all by surprise. Gabriel seeks out the senior officer and pulls the man aside.

"I'll take care of this."

"Commader?"

Gabriel brushes his questions away with a hand. "The man out there is my responsibility. Stay out of it or this situation could blow up beyond what any of us can control. Trust me on this."

The man is unconvinced and opens his mouth to protest but Gabriel is unwilling to negotiate. "Contact Amari if you want, she will tell you the same damn thing. I appreciate you doing your job but this isn't something you or your men are equipped to handle."

A smart shake of the head. "Aye, sir."

* * *

Jack Morrison's memorial statue is not quite half finished, merely a skeleton of parts on a pedestal in the building's courtyard. The very alive Jack Morrison himself is leaning against its base with the pulse rifle beside him, arms crossed, currently turned away from Gabriel's approach and staring along the courtyard and into the distance. Gabriel stops a few steps away from Jack, just within the statue's shadow but not quite at arm's length.

"Jackie."

Jack's posture shifts; not in surprise, but in resignation. "Don't mind me, just reminiscing about old times."

"Bullshit."

The visor whirls to Gabriel and the red light is glaringly bright in the semidarkness. Jack's eyebrows settle at an accusatory angle. "You know I have to do this, Gabe."

"Also bullshit."  

Jack laughs, though it is oddly metallic through the filter of the face mask. The sound of it is a surprise to both of them.

"What are you trying to accomplish here, Jackie?" Gabriel's question breaks a long silence. "If you leave, you're only going to destroy yourself."

"More than I already have? Ha," Jack shakes his head and steps back, letting his hands fall to his sides. "I've been on this path for months, Gabe. Since the day Aron Haber left me for dead. I wanted to finish what he started and either through SEP or my own fucking luck or _both_ I'm still here, with nothing to show for it but a dead man in my wake and plenty of unanswered questions."

"But why do you _need_ those questions answered? Or why not let _me_ do it? Blackwatch can--"

"This is something I have to do alone."

"Will you stop being an ignorant asshole for two fucking minutes and _listen_ to me?" Gabriel closes the gap between them. "Look, Jackie. You were _dead._ Regardless of how that actually didn't happen, you were gone, someone I had lost and would never get back. There wasn't even a grave because I couldn't find a body to bury. And it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, to make the decision to turn my back on the last place I saw you. To accept that I would never see you again.  Do you really think, that after _all of that,_ that I would be willing to just let you walk out of my life?"

He can feel the change in Jack's emotions; they radiate off the man in waves.

"It wasn't easy for me," Jack's voice is low. "None of it was. Knowing what it would do to you? I don't deserve this. If it ... if it weren't for the damn visor, I don't think I would have ever come back to Overwatch and I'd still be dead to you and we'd probably both be better for it."

The words hang with the power of a guillotine.

"Presumptuous asshole," Gabriel sneers.

"I know. I _used_ you. I don't deserve any--"

"...I'll find you," Gabriel cuts him off. "There isn't a place in this world you can hide from me."

Jack laughs mechanically and is silent for several heartbeats before muttering: "yeah, I know."

"I watched you for years, Jack, behind Blackwatch's veil, and I don't think you even _realized_ it half the time. Forget your security detail. It was _me._ "

"I've had a ghost at my back for weeks now. Having a Reaper there won't be any different."

Gabriel draws in his breath slowly through his teeth as the memory surfaces, of conversations from years and lifetimes ago. "Ain't heard that name since SEP."

"I think it's appropriate, given that you're stalking a dead man."

"Something tells me I'll be cleaning up a dead man's messes, too."

"I'm a man on a mission, Gabe. Just stay out of my way."

Gabriel tries to smirk but cannot put the right emotion behind the action and it comes off as more of a grimace. "You know I can't do that."

Jack's hands find either side of Gabriel's face in a sudden show of intimacy that belies his every recent word. The motion draws them together and bathes their faces in red light; the closeness makes Gabriel physically hurt and he wants to kiss the man with an urgent fervor, but the there is nothing for him to see or to touch but cold and unfeeling metal. Gabriel settles instead for gripping at Jack's wrists, feeling the man's pulse--quickened, but strong--beneath his fingers.

"I'm sorry," Jack mutters as he pulls his hands away.

Gabriel tries to redouble his grip but his fingers feel nerveless, sluggish.

"I can't _think_ of anything else, Gabe. There's nothing left inside me but this need for revenge, like some terrible monster, and I can't control it. It physically hurts. I need answers, or it just might kill me. Again."

Jack draws away and takes two steps experimentally. He is not looking directly at Gabriel but the latter knows that the visor gives Jack extended peripheral vision and that the man is watching him intently. Gabriel raises his gaze defiantly.

"...I'll let you go," Gabriel says slowly, deliberately. "Or maybe I already have."

Jack sighs deeply; his entire body trembles with it. "I'm glad."

In response to Gabriel's suddenly horrified expression Jack waves a hand in a mollifying gesture. "Not like _that._ It's just ... I won't have to put up a facade any more. I just wish it had happened in a different way. That I didn't have to hurt you and everyone else the way I did. Especially _you."_

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

Truthfully, Gabriel can't believe anything that has happened in months and is half convinced that his body ceased functioning some time after Jack's mission went to hell and everything since then is some bizarre hallucination. His world was supposed to return to some semblance of normalcy after the war, not become this warped antithesis of what should have been his future.

"I can't believe a lot of things, Gabe." Jack mutters distractedly as he gathers the pulse rifle and swings it over one shoulder. "I just know what needs to be done."

"With a word I could expose this whole thing. Have security out here. Bring your entire plan crashing down."

Jack turns away, speaks not directly to Gabriel but to the air around them: "you won't do that."

Gabriel grits his teeth and curses under his breath, though it is loud enough for Jack to hear in the silence.  

"Goodbye, Gabe."

"Jackie--"

Jack looks back over one shoulder but does not turn around. "I'm just a Soldier now."

He begins his walk across the courtyard and Gabriel stands frozen, his heart and his head functioning on two different wavelengths and the resulting chaos leaving him disconnected, floating above his body like a newly departed soul, examining the remains of a body left crumbling and broken.

Jack does not look back. His departure happens both gradually and all at once in a sickening disruption of time that seems to age Gabriel a hundred years in a dozen seconds. Gabriel takes one step, then another, but his legs refuse any more; the weight on his body is oppressive. He turns away, clenches his hands into fists.

He calls out into the distance at his back, loud enough that Jack's name echoes in the air. It is a useless gesture and Gabriel knows this; Jack is a distant thing to him now, as far gone as he was when Gabriel thought him dead, if not _more._ It is a distance that started as a crack and became a crevasse and is now a void, nothing left between them but an emptiness without measure. Once, they were an integral part of one another, the reason for each other's existence. Now, the foundation of what _was_ is in ruins and their futures exist independent of one another and Gabriel feels broken, without focus. An inescapable _hatred_ wells inside him; not for Jack, not for himself, but for something he cannot identify. A ghost of a thing that is haunting him, this specter of what he and Jack were or should have been and what he should have done, could have done, _would_ have done. The taste of regret is like blood on his tongue.

Gabriel snarls in a rising crescendo and throws his fist at the base of the unfinished statue but his hand passes through it in an uninterrupted arc and he lurches off balance in utter surprise, scrabbling for purchase with his other hand against the air before slamming face-first into the concrete. There is a inexplicable coldness in his limbs and in his chest. He glances down at his hands in anger, demanding an explanation that suddenly fails in his brain because he sees plumes of black smoke oozing off his fingers and curling around his wrists, the tendrils pulsing like a living thing in time with his wildly beating heart. All coherent thought rips away; in some visceral way he is aware of clenching his fists but as his hands move they vanish into the miasma of blackness and he tries to draw away from it in horror, twisting his limbs frantically in an attempt to dislodge himself. He falls backward unceremoniously, landing on his back with a force that makes his vision spin; the smoke curls upward and away from him as if carried on wind and disperses, though the night is utterly still. He lifts his hands above him and they appear solid against the dark blanket of the sky above, and he stares in disbelief as his chest heaves like a man starving for air.

All sense of time evaporates and he gapes at his hands until his vision blurs and his arms shake from the effort of holding them upright. He hears a frantic voice as if from an unbelievable distance and pushes himself to a sitting position to see the head of security staring at him from very close. The man is barking frantically into his comm but gives the order to hold as Gabriel locks eyes with him.

"Commander? Are you alright?"

"I--" The words elude him. What does he say? _I just saw myself become a fucking ghost?_

"Sir?"

Gabriel shakes his head in defeat.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he mutters as he drags himself to his feet. He glances behind and into the distance with the last strands of hope in his heart as if expecting to see Jack coming back to him, back to reason, but the man is shrinking against the horizon without pause and a part of Gabriel is going with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay, the boys were naughty and did not want to cooperate. 
> 
> The ending of this chapter is dedicated to Flaming Starfish who is just a delight!


End file.
